Dan Lewis also deserves a smack for his lie-packed lead-in to last night's KOMO 4 News "report" about the Center for Sex Positive Culture. Let's take it line by line:

Could your tax dollars be paying for a sex club?

No, Dan, they couldn't. Maybe they could in some alternate universe where the US government subsidizes sex clubs. But nobody's tax dollars are funding the Center for Sex Positive Culture in Seattle. As a non-profit, the Center doesn't pay certain taxes. Just like innumerable other clubs, theaters, churches, etc., etc. It receives no subsidies or grants from the federal government—unlike clubs, theaters, churches, etc. The Center doesn't get a cent of "your tax dollars," Dan, or mine, or your viewer's, or anyone else's. Tax dollars paying for a sex club? That's a lie.

The Problem Solvers have learned that a Seattle woman is looking for state and federal money to help finance part of her sex organization.

Is the Center in line for a federal bailout? No, it's not—and, again, it's not getting grants from the state or federal government. It's also not applying for any. So this "Seattle woman looking for state and federal money" to run her sex club? Another lie, Lewis. Oddly this charge isn't mentioned anywhere in lying sack of shit Ginter's report.

KOMO 4 Problem Solver Marlee Ginter went to find out where your hard-earned money might be going.

I suppose you've covered your butt with that "might"—yeah, your money might be going to the Center, after all anything could be happening in that alternate universe where our federal government showers money on sex clubs—but, again, you're working awfully hard to leave your viewers with the impression that the Center is on the dole somehow, that they're relying on checks from the government to keep their doors open. You've either confused the Center for Sex Positive Culture with WaMu, Lewis, or you feel you can lie with impunity about the Center because it allows people to have sex—ZOMG! SECKS! DIRTY, DIRTY SECKS—on the premises.

Brian Alexander is the author of America Unzipped—you can read about his book here—and he was interviewed about his experience visiting the Center for Sex Positive Culture in Marlee Ginter's "problem solver" report last night on KOMO 4 News.

Watching Alexander's brief comments in Ginter's report I got the impression that he was opposed to the what goes on at the Center—the work they do, the parties they host—and that America Unzipped must be a book-length condemnation of alternative sex cultures. Not true. Not only isn't Alexander opposed to alternative sex cultures, it turns out that he wasn't interviewed for Ginter's piece. Ginter lifted clips from an interview Alexander did for KOMO more than a year ago when his book first came out. Ginter took Alexander's comments out of context and worked to create the impression that Alexander was just as shocked by the goings on at the Center—ZOMG! SECKS! THEY'RE DOING SECKS THERE!—as Ginter herself either is or pretends to be when the little red light is on.

And—surprise!—Alexander isn't happy with Ginter or KOMO. Here's the letter he sent Ginter:

Dear Ms. Ginter:

I was surprised to receive a link to Dan Savage's blog that featured your report from last night on Komo-TV that featured a snippet of an hour-long conversation I had in your studios nearly one year ago when my book—which you pictured—debuted.

While I admired the breathless style, and the very creative editing that must have taxed the imagination of the editor, I was disconcerted because your report made it appear as if 1) I conducted some sort of scary undercover sting or investigation 2) I was shocked by what I saw 3) I condemned it.

None of these are true.

In fact, I recall saying in the interview that the club members were "normal" and not scary, that the club had a very real educational purpose, and that my reporting for the previous year, in communities across the country, showed how much more mainstream BDSM and other formerly alternative sex practices were becoming.

Sheesh.

If you had bothered to read the book, or even the chapter based in Seattle—or even if you had watched your own station's brief interview with me taped on that same day for the afternoon show—you would have known that I spent time with Allena and with club members and that I had been welcomed with openness and graciousness, just as you apparently were. I made it clear that while I did not find some of the activities of some members to my taste, I was not condemning.

I realize that doesn't make for good "hard-hitting" TV news but boy, you really made the most of what you had. Way to go.

Now I feel as if I should apologize to Allena and the other club members. But I also feel you owe an apology to me for putting me in this position.

Pretty cheesy.

Yours,
Brian Alexander

Alexander may have to wait a while for an apology from Ginter, Seattle's own Kandiss Crone. But I'd like to apologize to Alexander for falling for Ginter's unethical bullshit and calling him a, um, "douchebag" in the post I wrote last night after seeing the teaser for Ginter's lie-packed attempted take-down of the Center. Um, sorry about that, Brian.

It's not too late to give Ginter—sexphobe, liar, unethical journalist—a piece of your mind. Email her at MGinter@komotv.com.