Forum Newsfront

a survey of events related to issues raised by "the playboy philosophy"

Sex and the Student

Stanford, California--Dr. Joseph Katz, research psychologist and director of a massive four-year study of students at Stanford and the University of California at Berkeley, declared that sexual promiscuity is not common among college students. "Sexual intimacy," he stated, "where it occurs, takes place in the context of a relationship that is serious rather than casual." More important to the students than mere physical contact, maintains Dr. Katz, is the desire to establish communicative relations.

Homicide and the Fetus

Washington, D. C.--Assistant U. S. Attorney Alfred Hantman gave an unexpected and bizarre boost to the cause of abortion-law reform. Faced with the unusual case of a man who shot his pregnant wife--killing the eight-month fetus in her womb but merely wounding the mother--Hantman had to decide whether to enter a charge of homicide. He chose to press the lesser charge of assault with a deadly weapon, on the grounds that a fetus is not a human being and cannot be the victim of homicide.

New Ginzburg Appeal

New York--Attorneys for Ralph Ginzburg, who was convicted in 1963 for sending obscene material through the mails and was sentenced to five years' imprisonment, have again urged the Federal Court of Appeals to reconsider the publisher's prison sentence. This is their third such attempt since the U. S. Supreme Court upheld Ginzburg's conviction in March 1966. The convicted publisher is at present free on bail.

Rape and Sodomy

New Orleans--An aggravated-rape charge against a 25-year-old man was dropped when the district attorney's office explained (according to The Times-Picayune): "This defendant has no previous record. The victim did not complain until her boyfriend became angry. Victim had prior sexual experience. Victim did not resist (no screams, no calls for help). Victim had known defendant for three months. Intercourse took place in defendant's apartment."

The statement in favor of the defendant, however, did not prevent the D.A.'s office from initiating a charge of "crimes against nature"--oral intercourse and buggery--based on the same incident.

Prison Jungle Disclosed

Chicago--Indications that two prisoners in Chicago's Cook County jail were murdered by their fellow inmates, because the victims were prepared to complain about sexual molestations, have led to a public furor over inhuman conditions in the prison. Former inmates revealed to newspaper investigators that homosexual behavior and sexual assaults upon prisoners was extremely common. Chicago Sun-Times reporter William Braden took Dr. Edward T. Hall, an expert on the relation between living space and human behavior, to the jail. Dr. Hall described the place as a "sink," a term used in his field to refer to an extremely crowded situation that produces a foul condition marked by gross behavior patterns. "This place is incredible," said Dr. Hall. "It's bad and it's evil and it's designed to corrupt people and it brings out all the worst in human beings."

Pot Myths Assailed

Both marijuanaphiles and marijuanaphobes suffered setbacks as recent evidence cast doubt on myths favored by each. The pro-pot people argue that use of the weed leads to benevolent and pacifistic consciousness expansion--a proposition long doubted by those who are aware that the Assassins, a fanatical Moslem cult of the late Middle Ages, were dedicated to both murder and marijuana and that the Hell's Angels smoke grass almost daily without losing any of their aggressiveness. The latest setback for the pot-pacifism myth was a student referendum at the University of Colorado indicating that the hippie and hawk mentalities are not necessarily incompatible: The students voted, by a large majority, that pot should be legalized and also that the war in Vietnam should be escalated.

Meanwhile, the marijuanaphobes suffered a reverse of their own, as the Institute for the Study of Crime and Delinquency, a nonprofit research organization, found that pot smoking doesn't necessarily lead to heroin addiction. In a study of 886 youngsters arrested for use of pot in Los Angeles during 1960 and 1961, the Institute discovered that only 12 percent subsequently used heroin, a proportion so small as to demonstrate that there is no cause-and-effect relationship between the two forms of drug usage.

"Forum Newsfront" is a monthly review of issues and events pertaining to subjects discussed in "The Playboy Philosophy" and "Forum." Readers are invited to send information about newsworthy events in their own communities to: The Playboy Forum, Playboy Building, 919 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago, Ill. 60611.