Dear readers,
As we all know, this month is Pride Month, that traditional time of year when we are called to reflect on all the many things we might be proud about. Some of us are proud of raising our families. Others of us are proud of our military service or some career achievement. And then there are those of us proud of dressing up in bizarre leather straps, suggestively dancing on top of a float for an hour or so, and later relieving fifteen dudes at once behind the parking lot of the Dollar Tree.
Call me crazy, but I never found uncontrollable sexual attractions to be a source of pride exactly. For myself, such urges are (or were) much more like recurring bouts of madness, briefly indulged one way or another, and soon afterward regretted. But maybe that’s because I’m straight and I’ve been doing it wrong all these years. If only I'd swapped-out the bountiful bosoms in my fantasies for long floppy ding-dongs, then I wouldn’t be saddled with such unbearable shame as I have today. No, no! Quite the contrary! In such a case, I’d have something to take pride in!
Am I the only one who finds this silly? I mean, do tentacle porn enthusiasts get their own special month? What about all those weirdos who dress up like animals? What about all those weirdos who do more with animals than just dress up? And why not? Why, out of an endless supply of unorthodox sexual experiences is one category singled out and exalted above all others? Explain that to me, if you please.
Now, like many Americans, my views on this particular subject have changed over the years. I can honestly say I am far more respectful and understanding about this peculiarity than I was in, say, 1953. However, in my own case (and I suspect for many others), this change was NOT brought about by a cavalcade of lascivious men, clad in assless chaps, cavorting around a humongous phallic symbol parading down main street. It was brought about by the many decent and hardworking gay people I’ve had the pleasure to know, who went about their activism with quiet dignity, and who very rarely (if ever) made their private lives objects of public consumption.
Almost every gay person in my life wouldn’t be caught dead at a pride parade. I figure it’s because they have real actual lives to interest and occupy them, and moreover, with restrictions against gay marriage crumbling across the western world – what’s the point anymore? What other meaningful battles need to be fought? Is this all just an excuse for special people to go out and remind us how special, awesome, amazing, fearless, and brave they all are? I’ll let you decide…
Maybe in previous decades, some public avowal of the self-worth of gays and lesbians meant something. Maybe it helped banish the shame and persecution which traditionally accompanied western homosexuality. But surely we're miles past that point by now. Taken altogether, the Gay Rights Movement is one of the most successful such movements in history. It germinated, coalesced, and achieved its most important goals in record-shattering time. Less than a generation, in fact, depending on how you count it.
Hats off to the gays, I say. Well done. And I think we boring old non-gays deserve a pat on the back too. I guess you could say we’ve gotten pretty good at this whole tolerance thing. Truly, what business is it of mine who my neighbor loves or who he sleeps with? None whatsoever. No more than what sort of car he drives or what species of pet he owns. It’s all part-and-parcel of freedom as I see it. In order to be a free people, we must first be a tolerant people, and putting up with things that may vex us is the truest test of our commitment to liberty.
But naturally, all this good stuff plainly isn’t good enough for some. To some sorts of minds, the tolerance of others is almost worse than outright prejudice. For in a world without villains, how could they triumph over oppression? How else could they be celebrated, applauded, or adulated without having to do very much of anything? I mean... you tell me. Sadly, it seems the case that for too many political gays and their various cheerleaders, such activism has become dangerously intertwined with their very souls.
I hazard to guess it was like this all along. In nearly every noteworthy social movement, there is a body of people who desire to achieve a particular set of aims, and then – tacked-on, as it were – is another body of people for whom agitation and disquiet is nothing less than a way of life. The cloddish principal of my (former) employer used to say to the students, “It’s the journey, not the destination,” and this pablum may be true, so far as it goes… just perhaps not for everything. Perhaps you can cross-off social/political activism from that list. Otherwise when do the activists de-activate? When do the builders finish the building? Must they continually knock it down and start over again and again? For eternity?
And here, if you’ll permit me, I’d like to introduce you to my own modest contribution to the study of human behavior. I call it O’Flannery’s Law and I’m confident you will see how it applies to the current discussion. Put simply, O’Flannery’s Law states this: 1 out of every 5 people are totally and irreversibly batshit insane.
O’Flannery’s Law cuts across all categories of people, whether grouped by sex, color, creed, or boudoir delights. If you group enough whites together, you’re bound to find that 1 out of every 5 believe in utterly vile balderdash: whether virulent woke nonsense, or genuine white supremacy, or something else entirely. If you group enough Christians together, you’re going to find that 1 out of every 5 are flat-earthers, and if you group enough Jews together, you’re going to find that 1 out of every 5 refuse to touch a light switch on Saturdays.
Sadly, there seems precious little we can do about this. The O’Flannery Ratio may well be a fixed and permanent part of the human condition. But there are steps that those of us in the non-insane population can take to mitigate the worst effects of those who are.
Speaking on behalf of the whites, I think we’ve done a pretty good job sidelining our crazies over the years. Sure, a few loony-toons slip through the cracks every now and then – you get a Richard Spencer once every blue moon or so – but by and large, none of these clowns pull very much weight. At the moment, it seems a good many blacks are starting to push back against their own whack-jobs, and the same is true for women with theirs.
I say it’s high-time the gays step up to the plate too.
Enough with this ridiculous L-G-B-T-Q-A-N-D-B-I-N-G-O-W-A-S-H-I-S-N-A-M-E-O baloney. We don’t need it. It serves no purpose, except as therapy for the warped minds of those occupying the furthest planes of the O’Flannery Ratio. And as I will show, it is most likely doing far more harm than good. Thus I call upon you, my gay countrymen, to rope-off this mindless swarm from the rest of us. You must circle the wagons and make it very clear the gays aren’t going to stand for any more of this demented flim-flam.
For one thing - and this hasn't gone unnoticed by your more astute gays and lesbians - partnering so closely with the transgender crowd might've been a disastrous mistake. Put aside the nightmare of trans interlopers on gay and (especially) lesbian dating apps, there are serious philosophical implications to consider. The central assertion of the original Gay Rights movement was that sexual orientation is fixed prior to birth and is unchangeable. Kind of like - oh, I don't know - your sex. Aha! But along comes the Trans Rights movement whose central assertion goes the exact opposite way: birth sex is changeable, not just cosmetically, but in every possible way. So, which is it? Which natal facets are changeable and which of them aren't and why?
Here's another question no-one seems able to answer: Why is gay conversion therapy very bad, awful, wicked, monstrous, etc, whereas trans conversion therapy is very good, uplifting, reaffirming, and always the right thing to do? Look... If gays and lesbians go through a journey, as some put it, towards accepting themselves for who they are, why shouldn't gender dysphoric people be expected to accept themselves for who they are? That is to say, if you were born a man, but feel like a woman, you may just have to accept at the end of the day that you're a man.
Do you see what a mess this is? And it gets worse. How many odd, confused, lonely, and probably gay boys and girls are being fed a lot of tripe about how they're actually transgender? In the past, such persons would've grown up, discovered they were gay or lesbian, and accepted it. Now, a certain number of these children - and I stress the fact they're only children - are being pressured into taking horrendous drugs, cutting off body parts as soon as they can, and (God help us) being unctuously celebrated by hysterical LGBTQ boosters of all stripes.
Is that something to be proud about? Well...? Is it...? I say again: the gays need to take a stand. Just because the slogan has the words “gay” or “lesbian” or “bisexual” in it, doesn’t mean you are anywise obligated to support it. Just ask me how much I root for the White Pride movement, or if there was a Straight Pride movement, how little I would care for that.
And another thing. Too much use of this word "pride". What in God's name do you have to be proud about anyway? When it comes to life between the sheets, the only thing you should be proud about (if anything) is the light in the eyes of your lady after you’ve given it your all. Or it could be a gentlemen. I’m not one to judge. The point is the same. Did you, for those thirty to sixty seconds, transport her (or him) to the peak of Mount Ecstasy, and did you lie naked together in the Temple of Tender Joys, and did you bask in the warm luxuriant rays of the Loveliest Star? Just the pair of you, as if the whole world had stopped...
Now, I'm not saying I've ever managed to accomplish anything of the kind myself. I'm just saying that if I had, I might be proud of it.
By all means, be proud you pursued a romance worthy of song. Be proud, likewise, you remained faithful to a lifelong commitment. Be substantially less proud about dressing up like a bag of skittles and getting high on the malodorous fumes of your own enormous self-regard. And if your bedroom propensities happen to include straps, whips, excrement, or small furry animals, maybe – just maybe - shame is the more appropriate word here.
Right. Well, that’s all for now, I think. To tell the truth, it's such a beautiful day today, I can't help but feel a little "gay" myself. I think I'll take a stroll in the park and look at all the flowers. After all, what gay man doesn't adore a most handsome flower? Not this incredibly gay man. No, sir.
Ta-ta,
James O’Flannery