Philosophical consistency is an aspirational goal. It is not, no matter how much we may want to believe in our own purity, something any of us will ever truly achieve. Also, even if you drive a Prius your farts stink; you have to spring for a Tesla before they turn to perfume.
It is easy to see the inconsistencies in the belief systems of people with whom we disagree (because they are all stupid and rude); it is much harder to recognize those in our own noble, and wise beliefs. Almost all of us here are small ‘l‘ libertarians. Iam a conservative leaning libertarian. We yokels sometimes make jokes about capital “L” Libertarians being all about pot, Mexicans and ass sex which is our deliberately offensive shorthand for our belief that The Libertarian Party, (sorry I know it doesn’t really deserve a capital letter but how else do we distinguish between libertarians and Bill Weld?)campaigns exclusively on sexual liberation (which has been pretty completely achieved, and no you did not get a speck of credit from the progs), drug legalization (yay crony pot!), and open borders, to the exclusion of freedom of association, gun rights, and limiting the massive growth of government, which we see as the more significant issues.
I set this all out as a starting point, because I am going to be examining one of my own prejudices and it helps to give some context about my belief structure. In other words I studied law and philosophy and am now completely incapable of getting directly to the point. Hell, just be glad I didn’t spend 5 pages defining every noun in this article.
Up to this point you are probably thinking: Pompous guy spouting above the fray platitudes, libertarian model II, Paulista edition, time to move to the comments, nothing interesting here. But I am not writing this to signal virtue; I am writing this, and struggling with it, because I have realized (not for the first time) that I have a conflict in my beliefs, and one that I think quite a few people here share.
It has to do with everyone’s favorite non-acronym acronym. That wonderful keyboard swipe that defines sexual politics, LGBTQ. I am not worried about the L, they take care of themselves just fine, the G, they aren’t even victims anymore, the B, doubled date chances and all, or even the Q (Hi Q thanks for the mammaries!), but I have a problem with the T. Ok, I don’t really understand the Q, I mean literally, I do not understand what queer means if it is something not covered by the L,B, or G. So back to that troublesome T.
I believe that there are three phenomena lumped into that T, and that due to deliberate conflating of these phenomena, a great deal of misery is being created. First, there are the physically intersex individuals. That tiny minority who are born with some ambiguity in their sexual characteristics. Second, there are those suffering from gender dysphoria. Also a small minority, but in this case with a psychological disconnect between their otherwise normal physiology and their self perception. Finally, there are those I think of as the snowflakes. Generally young people who I believe identify as transgender either in confusion about their sexual desires, a search for victimhood, or just to dramatize teen angst.
For the intersex folk out there I have nothing but compassion. My only wish for them is that they find whatever role and path to happiness they can. If that means surgery, hormone treatments, and selection of a gender, great; if it means some other path, also great. For those with actual gender dysphoria my thoughts are more complicated. I personally think that treating a psychological disconnect by changing the body is the wrong path, but it isn’t my place to decide what path someone else should take, so who cares what I think?
For the snowflakes, less sympathy, a lot less. As with many snowflake issues the answer is that growing up is hard, but worthwhile, and I suggest they give it a try. No, occasionally having a stereotypical feminine feeling does not a dysphoria make. You are not a lesbian woman trapped in a man’s body. You are just a straight dude, even if you get off on wearing women’s clothes. Equally, if you are ok with your body, but want to engage in sex with another dude that is called being gay, it does not require surgery, hormones, or switching restrooms. Just do what makes you happy, don’t harm other people and stop being so dramatic.
And now you are all thinking: Ok, what’s so contradictory about all this? These are pretty bland, basic viewpoints on this issue, and even the part where I diverge from the sjw narrative I admit is none of my business so why bother to spout off? Aren’t I just being an angsty snowflake myself with all mydramatic “philosophical contradiction” nonsense? BUT I AM SPECIAL DAMMIT!
Well, there is a more controversial part of all this.
What about the kids? Pretty much anyone who claims to be libertarian is going to eventually come around to the idea that adults can make their own choices about hormones and surgery. There may be some waffling about bathrooms, and we may think prisons, sports leagues and other sex segregated venues should go by biology, but it’s very hard to claim to be pro individual liberty and at the same time deny adults the right to make their own decisions about their bodies. Children are a different thing. (Why will no one ever think of them!)
Children do not have full autonomy. Obviously, you cannot let a toddler, or grade-schooler, or even a middle-schooler make all, or even most, of their day to day decisions. A diet of soda, candy, and ice cream is unhealthy. Spending all day playing Fortnite or hunting Pokemon is less productive than school (ok, maybe the kids are right on this one). Vaccinations are actually a good thing, even if shots sting. And, no, the dog does not want to be dressed as your caparisoned stallion and ridden to battle with the forces of evil over at Mikey’s house. So, we all accept that children can rightly be prevented from doing as they wish.
We accept the concept of parental authority, and the idea that children’s basic right to liberty is in abeyance until some degree of maturation has occurred.(Or at least until they get big enough to be useful as cannon fodder.) Very young kids have effectively no liberty, and as they get older they gradually get more autonomy until at some magic point they morph into adults and become free to go to hell in their own way, just like all of us.
I have voiced the opinion that encouraging, or even allowing, children to take puberty blockers, or cross sex hormone treatments, is blatant child abuse. Puberty blockers have permanent effects and the idea that prepubescent kids are developed enough to make permanent decisions, or even to decide that they are transgendered, as opposed to simply homosexual, or just unsure about their sexuality, is nonsense.
By definition, prepubescent kids are not sexually developed. It is the rankest prejudice to say, “Oh, I know little Johnny is gay, or straight, or transgendered,” when little Johnny hasn’t hit puberty. Manifestly all you can be basing that belief on are your stereotypes about how gay people, or straight people act.You see, prepubescents aren’t supposed to be engaged in sexual behavior (sorry OMWC), and sexual behavior is what actually defines you as gay, straight, bi or whatever the hell, and no, playing with dolls doesn’t mean little Johnny is gay, or a woman.
Now, child abuse is a tough subject for libertarians and conservatives. We can accept that children don’t have full autonomy, and default to the idea that therefore their autonomy devolves to the parents. Since that leaves the parents effectively owning the liberty right of the child, we are skeptical about government involvement, but what about abuse situations? If libertarian belief followed all the way left us with no way to stop parents from torturing, raping, or killing their kids, then libertarians would really be as evil as Vox says. Fortunately, libertarian philosophy doesn’t have to take us there.
I think what saves us is the concept of a fiduciary. Parents do own their children’s liberty rights, but they own them as fiduciaries. In other words, they hold the right for the benefit of the child, not the parent’s own benefit, and Mommy and Daddy have a corresponding obligation to act in little Johnny’s interest. So, no problem right? If using puberty blockers is a bad idea, poorly justified, by inadequate evidence, of, possibly nonsensical,gender confusion, with long term deleterious effects, then it is child abuse and should be illegal, just like any other permanent physical harm inflicted!
That has been my belief and I have voiced it frequently. Here is the problem:
I support the right of crazy anti-vaxxers to refuse to get their kids shots. I also got furious, along with most of the people here about Charlie Gard. In other words I believe that medical decisions fall squarely within the parent’s role. So, despite thinking transgender treatments for children are as stupid as the Flat Earth Society bragging that they now have chapters around the globe, and as evil as a Broward County election supervisor, I have to support the parent’s right to make this decision.
So, that leaves me with three possibilities:
1. Medical decisions must be subject to some test and the parents only get to make the ‘right’ decisions.
The problem here is obvious. What test? Who decides? Doctors? Judges? Every single case of puberty blockers being given involved a doctor, as did the decision to kill Charlie, which was upheld by the British courts. So going this route doesn’t get me EITHER side of what I want. When an answer requires the right top men, it is not a libertarian idea
2. Puberty Blockers are up to the parents and child, hopefully in consultation with doctors across a decent spectrum of understanding of the consequences, and I can sit quietly disapproving but shut up about it.
3. My thought process sucks and you all will let me know why I am stupid in the comments.
Much as it pisses me off, I have to go with 2 here. The unexamined life may not be worth living; but examining it mostly leaves you feeling a bit dirty.
Being a libertarian can be tough. As our logo (I think of it as ours. The founders may be first among equals, but its the participation of the Glibertariat that makes this place amazing.) alludes to some of the misconceptions people have about libertarianism. The public discourse and the education complex don’t discuss the ideas that underlie the philosophy. So how do people arrive at it? I like hearing other people’s stories so I thought I’d share mine.
I grew up a poor black boy in…wait, no, I know the difference between shit and Shinola so that’s another guy. I did grow up in a rural area of N. Carolina and went to a Southern Baptist church. I suppose that had an impact on me. I started out a kid with not much appetite for authority, tons of questions about why, and intolerance for bullshit.
My favorite show was the Dukes of Hazzard. I think that had a big impact on me. I don’t know of any other show on TV that was so anti-authoritarian and so subversive while appearing to be nothing more than country kitsch. The authorities were corrupt, venal, petty and incompetent. Which almost made it a documentary. The Duke family were loving, fun, and had cool cars. And they never meant anyone any harm, even the corrupt government trying to destroy them. I didn’t realize for decades how formative that show was, but it set the stage later.
I grew older and more obstinate. The more I learned, the more questions I asked about why. And the more I realized that most of the authority figures in life didn’t know their ass from a hole in the ground, and either way couldn’t find it with both hands and a map. And with that realization, the more I began to question why they should be able to tell me what to do simply because they had managed to remain breathing. From there to questioning others in authority like politicians and cops wasn’t a huge leap and fortunately, around the time I was 11 I had an experience that helped me make the jump.
In the 5th grade the sad, pathetic nature of bureaucracy became crystal clear to me. We had an assistant principal that all the kids and parents adored. She truly was great with us kids; a good balance of discipline and love. When the principal announced his retirement due to health reasons a temporary principal was put in place while the school board decided on a permanent replacement. Full of nonsense about our form of government and a naive belief in the right of the people impacted to petition the government for redress I started a petition. I sent it around to kids and parents, asking for signatures supporting Mrs. Sandy (the asst. principal) for the principal position. The temp principal who had worked for the system longer and wanted it because of that, despite having spent years trying for a principal position without success, was not pleased. She went so far as to call me into her office for a dressing down and to demand I hand over my ‘stupid little petition’. This did not go well for her when I told my parents about our little meeting and her threats to suspend me if I didn’t comply.
My mom was something of a mama bear; if I was in the right she’d go to the mattresses for me. But woe betide my ass if I didn’t behave well. And the words, “This is bad enough your dad will handle it” struck a kind of liquid terror in my bowels on the few occasions I heard it. Dad was usually the less strict, so if he had to do the disciplining I knew I had seriously fucked up. Anyway, they both had my back and went up to the principal’s office the next morning and had a little come to Jesus meeting with the harridan. I am still not privy to the exact conversation, but she steered clear of me from then on out.
It was at the next school board meeting where I had that lesson about petty bureaucrats reinforced even harder and cemented my hatred of those pathetic types. The hiring of a permanent principal was on the list, I showed up with my petition and duly handed it in to the board. I was interviewed by the local newspaper for a front page story. And thus the lessons.
First, despite the petition having about 70% of the parents and students at the school signing on, Mrs. Sandy was passed over for the bitchy-bitch. The board accepted the petition, but they didn’t even look it over or read it. I mean, after all, what do the peasants and their children know about education?
Second, the news reporter got my quote wrong in the front page article the next day. They quoted an 11 year old wrong, changing the meaning of my words. I mean, this adult had one fucking job in a small town newspaper and they couldn’t even accurately write down what I said. That also made me pretty furious and long before the The Orange Cheeto turned the phrase around on them, cemented the idea of Fake News in my head and further stoked the fires of my skepticism.
By the time I hit college I’d had seven more years to shape my philosophy of politics and negative experiences of people in power. I labeled myself a conservative. But my religious indoctrination had also created a disgust with hypocrisy and a desire for clear, moral consistency so I often found myself at odds with certain conservative opinions. I’d also started reading Heinlein.
It is a little hard to articulate how big of an impact Heinlein’s novels had on me in regard to political thought. While it was never stated outright in that fashion, the NAP was there in his work, presented questions of moral agency, letting others live their lives as they see fit so long as they don’t offer your violence. (And the idea of non-monogamy, but that is a different post). It gave me a springboard to start looking for other works to help my burgeoning interest in a political ideology based on liberty and personal autonomy.
The final piece was a principled lefty prof, my adviser. In an age of ‘speech is violence’, no platforming, and all the rest of the Ctrl Left totalitarianism, it sounds odd that a lefty prof might recommend such kulaks and wreckers as HL Mencken, Rothbard, Milton Friedman, FA Hayek, and the like to a student discovering his politics seems unimaginable. But it happened. Because Mr. Collins was a liberal, but he was also a man who felt he had a duty to his students, and who took the goal of educating his students into thinking for themselves quite seriously.
I can’t claim I was completely reasoned into my thoughts on politics and libertarianism, but those are some of the sources that helped shape my thinking as I grew up. That’s how a corny country show from the ’80s, a petty bureaucrat, an incompetent reporter, a science fiction author, and a lefty professor helped me to develop my politics and outlook on life.
Hello boils and ghouls, it’s your old pal the Cryptkeeper here…no wait, that’s not my name. Sorry, sometimes I get caught up in the moment.
Though I gave up the regular movie review beat, I still thought I’d bang out an article like I did last year on our experiences at TFW. To celebrate, one of the below links will go to a hardcore porn site – the rest are safe. This is your NSFW warning. You’ll never know which one it is until you try. C’mon, don’t be a pussy.
This one will be a bit different in content, since many of you would have already read my post on this from last year, and thus are already familiar with the context. For those of you who are new to the site within the past year, or didn’t read my previous write-up, in brief, TFW is the southwest’s largest horror convention, and my wife & I spend the weekend there every year.
Like last year, I’ll have a few images in the text, but most all the photos will be at the bottom of the article. It’s mostly just pics of costumes & the stuff we bought, because almost all the celebrities this year charged extra for photos with them, and the few times I tried a creepshot, it came out terribly. The other photos are mostly terrible as well due to the fact that this is literally the only time of the year I ever take photos of anything, so please understand and forgive. The only ones I really regret it on are two cosplay photos of Tippi Hedren & Spawn, which were both good costumes but when I reviewed the pics afterward, you can barely see them due to bad backlighting. It was too crowded during the main hours to take shots, so I tried to snag a lot of them in the hotel lobby. Also as before, I had trouble formatting them into a row, so you’ll have to forgive me & simply scroll down the photos in a line at the end.
The guest lineup this year was fabulous. They had all of the original cenobites (minus the chick from the first film, because she never does any conventions, ever – so the guest in her place was the chick from the second movie, which was still a good horror film). To round that group out, we had a *very* special treat – Mr. Clive Barker. He doesn’t do a lot of these kinds of things, so we were overjoyed. In addition to his prolific painting and film work, if you haven’t read any of his fiction, I highly recommend it. His Books of Blood is one of my favorite collected works of short stories ever. If you dig fantasy/horror short fiction, check it out, seriously.
Also making appearances were Ron Perlman, Adrienne Barbeau, Billy Zane, Phil Fondacaro, Tommy Flanagan, Brad Dourif, Tom Savini, Matthew Lillard, all the kids from the new IT movie, Charles Band and a shit-load of people from the various Friday the 13th films. The Friday night party was themed Camp Crystal Lake, so they were heavy on those guests (as this is the 13th year of TFW). Since I’m honestly not crazy about that film series outside of the first two movies & a few creative kills, I didn’t much care about their presence. If you don’t recognize the names of anyone just listed, check the links – I promise you’ll recognize them or at least have heard of their work.
The weekend got started off right, with Adrienne Barbeau flying in Thurs. night to attend a screening of Escape from New York at the Texas Theater, and do a Q&A afterward. The print they used was fantastic, better than my dvd, and Adrienne was an engaging speaker. She said she has done so much voicework that she has frankly forgotten most of it, and only recalls that she took some particular job once every year when some check shows up for $0.96 and has “Judge Dredd” written on the memo line (she was uncredited as the voice of the computer in that film). She tossed that out as the example, but said she just gets checks for tiny amounts every day for random old things she did. I thought this must be a strange thing, to go to your mailbox every day and be like, “Huh, I got 8 checks in the mail totaling $5.72.”
So the next day the spousal unit & I took a half-day off of work & rolled into the convention in mid afternoon, though it doesn’t open until 6. On the plus side, in their fruit-infused water jug up front, the fruit was cut into the shape of skulls.
Skull-melons“White people are fucking weird”. Also, wood.Stupid
Also amusingly, the little cute Asian girls they have working there had to wear wound makeup and have silly horror accessories, like this photo of an attractive young lady with scissors sticking out of her head. I’ve often wondered what they think about that, because the racial breakdown of the con attendees is about 70% white, 25% hispanic, and the rest is miscellaneous. Like seriously, my wife is one of maybe 20 Asian people there actually attending, and I can always count the numbers of black folks on my fingers. I have no idea why that is, but it’s true. Less amusing was the eyeroll-inducing naming of the food on the menu. I mean come on, Trembling Turkey? Blood-Dripping Buffalo Wings? And what the fuck happened to the Southwest Shrimp Cocktail, didn’t warrant a new name because it’s already so awful?
The convention started off poorly – it was so fucking crowded that Friday night, I panicked. This thing frankly outgrew the convention space last year, and this year was worse. We try to do signature hunting on Fri. night & Sun., when it’s less crowded. Well we spent an hour in line for Clive Barker, only to be told that he was leaving to do his scheduled photo shoot & wouldn’t return to the signature line that night due to feeling poorly.
Yay
So the first hour was a waste, but it kind of worked out. If you recall last year, we purchased a crocheted Count Orlock. Well the same vendor was there and she had a big crocheted xenomorph, but only one of them. She told us it had been a right bitch to make, and she was never going to make another one, so we pounced on it. If we hadn’t been forced to do a little browsing on Friday evening, I’m certain someone else would have bought it & then I’d have had to have killed my wife and myself, and possibly my extended family as well.
5 of the 6 sides are now signed – four cenobites & Clive Barker
We did get the rest of the cenobites, Adrienne, and Billy Zane that night. A few anecdotes – the cenobites, despite being English and therefore you’d think reserved, will talk your ear off, even if you’re actively trying to exit the conversation. Nicholas Vince, who played Chatterer, was dressed in nice proper business-formal attire, except for some weird Pinhead Hello Kitty cufflinks, and to his delight my wife was the first to notice them that evening. Of course it’s because she’s fucking Asian, so she saw the Hello Kitty shit immediately somehow. Also, Barbie Wilde, the female cenobite, was selling her horror fiction books, and apparently is a very nasty-minded girl. Everything was a sexual innuendo or reference, and we all had a good laugh when, midway through our conversation, we could hear someone in another row (a worker, we believe, trying to repair something in a guest’s booth) said, “Damnit, I thought sitting in this chair would make it easier, but I think I was having more success on my knees.” Barbie, my wife and I all just looked at each other for a second before bursting out laughing. The photo you see is of the nice mahogany & etched brass puzzlebox we purchased to collect all their signatures on.
Also true fact: Billy Zane was just a leeeetle-bit of a dick. The best line in Zoolander pertains to him; “You should listen to your friend Billy Zane – he’s a cool dude”. Well we purposefully waited until there wasn’t anyone in his line, so that we wouldn’t be holding anybody up, and I asked him, “Hey, I know this is a bit unorthodox, but could you possibly sign this, ‘You should listen to me – I’m a cool dude’?” He smiled and kind of laughingly said, “Absolutely not”, then just stared at us. We thought he was joking for a second, because he said it kind of jovially, but then he said, “So…you just want me to make this out to the two of you or what?” So we said sure, and that was that. I mean hey, celebrities don’t owe me anything, I know that. But perhaps a, “Sorry man I don’t do personalizations to that extent” could be used instead of, “Hahaha NO”. Anyway he seemed nice enough in every other way, so maybe he’s just sick of that request. He was in a tracksuit & cowboy hat, and so looked kind of like a Russian gangster.
Phil Fondacaro’s line was short enough I was able to chat with him a bit. I asked him if it was just an outsider’s perception, or if there really were fewer opportunities for physically different actors like himself & Warwick Davis, with the advent of digital effects. He said absolutely, but it’s something of a mixed blessing because as he’s gotten older, and especially for someone who is physically limited to begin with, it’s a relief to not have to wear all the latex and costuming that he used to. A lot of the stuff that’s added in post now were the most cumbersome things to wear and act in, so the digital revolution isn’t all bad from his perspective. Of course the photo I got signed was of him as Vohnkar! And if you don’t get that reference, you’re no true child of the 80s.
Saturday was given to drinking, shopping, and making merry. It still sucked, because I had to wake my ass up at 7:30 to get in line for Clive Barker. Keep in mind the convention didn’t open until 11. So over three hours I sat there, but was 10th in line and so assured a chance to meet the great artist. Still, it left me a bit depleted for the remainder of the day.
We learned our lesson from previous years, and brought some beers, a bottle of bourbon (Larceny, which was very good for being as affordable as it was), and a bottle of Fireball. The hotel doesn’t care as long as you don’t get belligerently drunk – like David Arquette from a few years back. We were there and we saw bizarre things from a man still supposedly on the wagon. At least he drunkenly bought me a beer while we were both waiting at the bar. Anyway I attached a bunch of photos of all the shit we bought below, and some of the costumes we encountered.
That evening we spent a bit of time in the karaoke party, & went to a screening of Takashi Miike‘s live action adaptation of the manga, As the Gods Will. Now granted I wasn’t exactly sober, or anything even really resembling sober, by the time I saw this thing, but I still have no fucking clue what was going on. A weird doll was playing red-light, green-light with a class of students, and when it caught them moving their heads exploded, then the survivors went to their gym & dressed as mice and a giant maneki-neko was eating them, and it just got stranger from there. We finished out the night hanging out with all our friends on the patio, and there was a dude giving away free cigars for some reason, so that went well with the last of my bourbon (yes, the bottle was killed, with the able assistance of a couple of our friends).
Sunday was recovery day, so we went to the Ron Perlman panel. He’s a fun speaker – extremely foul-mouthed and self-deprecating. We snagged his signature and called it a weekend. As of the time of my writing this (Monday evening), yesterday was the saddest day of our year. This is our biggest event, and we get to spend it with a lot of great friends, and get a lot of great merchandise and add to our already ludicrous collection of autographs. Monsters everywhere, blood and guts, toys, movies, games, it just doesn’t get any better for the dedicated horror fan. And now it’s a whole other year until it comes around again. Oh well, less than six months to Halloween.
Love this shirt. I put this in just to trigger Old Man With Candy. “You all know me, know how I earn a living.” Great scene.This film stars a resident of Bronson, Missouri.Good costume tandem.I had no idea what the fuck this midget/child was dressed as.Sadly, they just don’t make movies like this anymore.This was sitting next to the coffee at the breakfast buffet.American Werewolf in London. Fucking awesome.A good group effortThis is some monster from an anime I don’t watch, but he did a good job with it.Oddly enough we were in the market for a new shower curtain, so we picked this up.I purchased this shirt to use as evidence because it has an unauthorized use of my likeness.A Game of Thrones Super Friends print. The Wonder Twins are Jaime & Cersei. Check out how their Wonder Twin powers activate.A bunch of little Aliens figurines we boughtMy wife bought this shirt. I was so pleased with her, I gave her the gift of the penis that very night.Remember Mad Balls? I remember Mad Balls. Now they’ve come back in the general wave of nostalgia, and there are Aliens Mad Balls.Great Spawn costume. You can’t see it well, but the eyes do glow bright green.For some fucking reason, there was a ton of Halloween III merch everywhere. I have no idea why, nobody likes that movie. Or I guess it’s trendy to claim to like it.The maid from the first season of American Horror Story. Also, wood.Of course I bought this shirt.A pretty good female Pennywise. Also, wood.Sloth loves inkAndrew Lincoln stealthily infiltrated the conventionHottie Ash. Also, wood.I liked this shirt.Creepy random guy. It’d be great if he just showed up like that and didn’t know there was a horror convention going on.Oh you *know* I bought this movie.Succubus. Also, wood.I liked how the only part of her costume that glows is one little strip right beneath her eyes. Wood knot, however.Well she normally wouldn’t have bought a denim vest, but the damned thing fit like it had been tailor made for her, so fuck it, the wife picked this up.Mutilated Disney princesses. Wood knot, to both.It’s really a shame you can’t see this properly, because she really does have like four or five birds attached to this thing attacking her. Wood knot.This was a great heavenly Pinhead costume. The insert glowing heart really sold it. Kudos to this guy.The whole Game of Thrones Super Friends.Sadly, did not buy this movie.If you can tell what that creature with the one large yellow eye is at the bottom of the poster, I’ll buy you a cookie if we ever meet. *HINT* It was one of my favorite movies when I was a kid.It’s like the fuckers are purpose-designing posters to try and get me to leave my current job and apply with them.I appreciated that he did the whole costume head from the first movie. Very few Captain Spauldings go through that extra effort.Hard to see, but she has a super realistic werewolf baby. Wood knot.I have no fucking clue what this is supposed to be.Mexican Deadpool being eaten by a guy in a big inflatable dinosaur skeleton costume. I should have also gotten a head shot of Mexican Deadpool for you – he had a sombrero & a big mustache. Such problematic, so appropriation.What the fuck is this I can’t evenOh look, The Shining. Wood knot.A representative from Dark Hour Haunted House in Plano, TX.Loved this idea – it’s Jason as he appeared in the NES game. Clever. Sadly, I had no rocks to throw at him, to keep try and act out the game.I liked the work this guy did on his head piece.A kid dressed as something from Five Nights At Freddy’s.Don’t know what the character is from, butt wood.Some anime, I’m sure. Wood.I thought this to be a clever way to do something different from the dozen bloody-soaked Carries walking around.The less said about this, the better.Wood knot.Silent Hill. Respectively, from the left, wood, knot knot knot.Star Trek…spiders? WTF is this even…?I thought about buying this for those days I feel like identifying as female.Great shirt – I had to zoom a lot to get it, so if you can’t tell, it’s our two protagonists from “They Live”. If you haven’t seen that movie, you’re a disgrace of a human being.There were a lot of IT costumes about. This was one of like, fifty.Hmm – from the left: wood knot, knot, wood, knot.It seems strange and grimly hilarious to me that a horror convention chooses depression as it’s charity of choice.The family that slays together…And of course you can’t even go to a fucking FFA convention anymore without there being multiple Deadpools.
I have been lugging a pistol around for thirty five years. It is a nuisance. I have to make certain I remember to bring it with me every time I leave the house. I have to always know where it is, make sure it is safe from theft or curious hands, and it can be heavy and uncomfortable to wear. Mind you, I love my pistols because most of them are the pinnacle of the machinist’s art. My collection, better than I ever thought I would have as a young man, goes back five generations in my family. They aren’t just tools. They are a testament to the ingenuity and skill of man, but just carrying a hunk of steel around is a pain in the butt. When I am home, I always have one either within arm’s reach or a step or two away. I have solved some of the problem by stepping down from a full sized pistol to a sub-compact, but it is still a nuisance.
Stainless, timeless, priceless
I find recreational shooting enormously enjoyable and years ago I did some competitive shooting. For me, the competition was just organized recreational shooting. Back in those days, I would burn through fifty thousand or more rounds per year. I was no Jerry Miculek but I guess I wasn’t too bad. I could break clays with ease with a pistol even drawing after the clay was in the air. Unfortunately, that is a perishable skill as I recently learned. Despite my enjoyment of all that, utility carrying is no fun. I wish I lived in a world where I could just put them all back in the safe after playtime is over.
I raised or partially raised several children, but I have only one biological son. He was the kid everyone wishes they had. He was never any trouble and actually followed the advice I gave him. I don’t know how much of that was because of me. I know his mother was no small part of it, but I like to think I wasn’t, either. He is a grown man now, married with two children and owns his own wildly successful business. He is smart and industrious and a true credit to our society.
When he was one year old, or thereabouts, his mother and I had our own business. It was a lot of work and meant long work days, sometimes up to 16 hours. We took turns in the evenings taking our son home and putting him to bed. One evening it was my turn so I put him in the child seat and strapped it in on the passenger side front seat. It was a dreary night, pissing rain and cold. Visibility was bad. In those days we had a small traffic circle that I had to navigate through to get home. Because it was so small, it was impossible to yield and then zip around. Invariably cars had to stop and wait. It functioned more as a four-way stop than a circle. On that evening, as usual, I had to stop. There were several cars in front of me and cars stopped behind me.
Without any warning a man began pounding on the passenger side window with his fist, just inches from my infant son. He was yanking on the door handle and trying to break the glass at the same time. He was screaming and cursing at me and demanding that I open the door. I don’t know where he came from. I have no idea what his circumstances were or why he was doing that, but no way in hell was I going to unlock that door. Fortunately, I had my pistol tucked between the seat and the console. I drew it out, reached across the cabin and pointed straight at his chest. I tapped on the window three times with the end of the barrel. *Poof*. The guy disappeared like smoke in the wind. I looked around the windows and in all of the mirrors, but I couldn’t see him anywhere. He must have dropped to the ground and crawled away. I still thank God he had the wisdom to do that. I didn’t have to pull the trigger but if he had broken that window or gotten that door open I certainly would have. In all of the years I have carried a pistol, that is the only time I have had to lay hands on it in earnest.
A pistol is exactly analogous to a fire extinguisher: another tool that I keep close at hand all of the time. I keep two of those in my jeep. You lug it around and 99.9999% of the time you don’t need it, but when the moment arises that you do need it, by God you need it.
As you can imagine, anti-gun and anti-second amendment arguments don’t carry much weight with me. Walk out all you want. Yammer lies until your jaw falls off. I am keeping my guns. It just isn’t up for discussion. My son is likely in the world today because one rainy evening twenty five years ago I had a pistol.
“I don’t know the question, but sex is definitely the answer.”
-Woody Allen
“In a perfect world, you could fuck people without giving them a piece of your heart. [But] every glittering kiss and every touch of flesh is another shard of heart you’ll never see again.”
-Neil Gaiman
“Sex without love is as hollow and ridiculous as love without sex.”
-Hunter S. Thompson
“The main reason Santa is so jolly is because he knows where all the bad girls live.”
-George Carlin
I place blame for this piece squarely on the shoulders of the commentariat. Discussions that began with the absurdity of #metoo quickly went down the rabbit hole of analyses of the sexual marketplace, human mating strategy and unending (indeed, unendable) sexual conflict between men and women. This forced me to think about things, which forced me to want to record and share them, which further forced me to embarrass myself and torture you all once again by inflicting my writing upon you. You have no one to blame but yourselves.
The Backstory
Let me begin with a disclaimer: I am not a biologist nor an expert on evolution or human sexuality. There are likely droves of people in the commentariat that are infinitely more knowledgable about these things than I am. To them, I apologize and please throw rotten vegetables in the comment section. To everyone else that doesn’t know any better, I am a 100% super-knowledgable expert on everything, so take every single word I say as gospel.
“Cave woman seeks cave man, must be at least 5’8″ to ride.”
Good, now that we’ve got that figured out, let’s start with a little story. You are Ug, an archaic male human, newly evolved to self-awareness and roaming the Savannah. You are 16, right in the prime of life, but rapidly approaching middle age. You are ruled by three overwhelming urges that dictate the terms of your existence; thirst, hunger and horniness. Fortunately for you, you have access to watering holes and you’re pretty handy with a spear so the first two are generally taken care of. One day, you come across Oog, an archaic female human with beautiful eyes and hairy pits just the way you like them. Because you are a human, you have no idea if she’s ovulating, all you know is that you need to get little Ug wet immediately. You show your best PUA skills, and 3 minutes later you have scratched that itch that has been bothering you for months. Nine months later, Oog has given birth to a beautiful baby girl Aag. You still have awkward encounters with Oog and see her about the Savannah, but when you see her with Aag you’re not really sure what to make of it. You don’t quite understand that your amorous activities 9 months ago could have caused this; you’re not really sure about anything. Oog could have had sex with 20 different guys and any one of them could be the father, but you don’t know that. Your knowledge of the situation is almost completely opaque. However, what you do know is that she has a baby with her now that needs nonstop attention and resources. Something inside you, another thing you don’t quite understand, is driving you to try and help her take care of this thing. So, against your better judgement, you start sharing your food and water with her and the baby and life goes on, a vision of domestic bliss, complete with a white picket fence around the cave.
The catch is that, Ug may not realize it, but he cannot possibly be sure that he is, in fact, the father of Aag. This is one of the two reasons that he doesn’t pull an alpha lion and kill Aag; the other one being “love” aka: a cascade of hormones (vasopressin, oxytocin, estradiol among others) that create a pair bond and make him want to take care of Oog and Aag and make more babies. So, rather than running back out on the Savannah and chasing some hot new strange, he embraces monogamy, otherwise known as making the best out of a bad situation.
Big Dicks and Horny Chicks
Our bodies and behaviors are museums dedicated to the millennia of evolution that have shaped the human race. Some adaptations are legacies from the larger course of mammalian evolution, internal fertilization, placental fetal nourishment and the eponymous mammary glands providing nourishment post-birth. There are, however, a number of adaptations that are unique (or nearly unique) to humans that must have evolved relatively quickly and can only be explained by sexual selection (physiologic changes brought about by mate preference pressure rather than environmental pressure). Human males have unusually large penises for primates, both as a percentage of body size and in absolute terms. They also lack an os penis or penis bone. The vast majority of mammals have a bone that will actually move into the penis during arousal to create an erection. Human males rely on hydraulic pressure from blood to get the job done. This also means that human penises are a bit more pliable during sex, getting to those hard to reach places. It’s an open question why these adaptations to the human penis happened, but it’s a safe bet that women chose men with these characteristics and had more babies with them. More pleasure? Consequence of bipedal locomotion? Not sure.
For the ladies there are two big ones. The first is my personal favorite; permanently engorged breasts. Biologists are reasonably certain that these are a consequence of humans’ preference for face-to-face sex and evolved as a visual stimulus analogous to the buttock that most male mammals would see while getting their freak on. Preference for large ones could be an indicator of age as bigguns tend to droop as a woman ages. The other adaptation is really important; concealed ovulation combined with year-round sexual availability. This means that humans have no mating season and women are DTF any time. It also means that a lack of being “in heat” ensures that neither partner knows if a particular copulation likely resulted in offspring being produced. This element of paternal uncertainty is essential to the way human relationships developed over time.
Whycome No Pics?
In case you need examples of how this all works (we’re all socially maladjusted failures around here, so it’s entirely possible), I have a pop-up book I can lend you. Before we completely lose the script here, I want to say that the previous story and examples of biological oddity that we humans have are simply to demonstrate that competing sexual strategy has always existed between men and women. This is expressed in our biology and it is certainly expressed in our behavior (what this tome will eventually come around to focusing on). Every animal has such an imbalance to some extent; it’s unavoidable.
Speaking strictly for humans, the cost of reproduction for women always has been higher. She is the one who is saddled with 9 months of pregnancy, followed by the necessity to care for an utterly helpless infant for years. This task, while not impossible to do alone, is light-years easier with Dad involved to procure resources and provide protection. Therefore, it’s in her best interest to be more restrictive when selecting a mate. Compounding her need to be choosy is the fact that she has a limited number of eggs and therefore a limited reproductive lifetime. She doesn’t want to waste scarce and precious resource on the wrong guy. Men, on the other hand, produce zillions of sperm from puberty until death and they’re all raring to be deposited in the nearest vagina, the more the better. Men, intrinsically, have a very low cost of reproduction. No pregnancy, an endless supply of sperm, why not go nuts? That is certainly one strategy that evolved (the “cad”). Fuck as many women as possible, banking on the fact that at least a few of the babies will survive after you love ‘em and leave ‘em. The other strategy (the “dad”), will stick around and help care for the baby, giving it a better chance of survival. The rub with this strategy is that dad only has an incentive to stick around if he’s reasonably certain that the baby carries his genetic material. Otherwise, he’s squandering his time, resources and opportunity cost taking care of someone else’s kid. On the flip side, mom is putting all her eggs (so to speak) in this guy’s basket, so she wants a guy with as many resources as possible. Resources often come along with strength and status, so women want those qualities.
From these few simple rules evolved basically all the pomp and circumstance surrounding human mating behavior. You see, the rules of the game are hardwired into us from thousands of generations. Despite progs’ desire to create the New Soviet Man, you can’t handwave away these realities and any changes to them will necessarily have to happen over a long period of time. Social engineering is a miserable failure when it comes to sex (and, well, pretty much everything else too, but that’s another article).
Modern Sex Pre-1960
Now we reach the crux of this piece, a survey of modern human sexual behavior as a consequence of these biological realities. Before people start throwing autistic fits, I’m fully aware that there are a multitude of other arrangements, lifestyles and aberrations to these rules (see: Sade, Marquis de); however, I’m working in averages here and looking at the most prevalent mating styles. I’m also not going to touch ancient societies with things like sacred prostitution, matriarchal societies (which, BTW, have never really been conclusively proven to have existed), “walking marriages” etc. Basically, I’m going to deal with post-Enlightenment, Western sexual relationships because that happens to be the world we inhabit.
Everyone had so many kids…
Humans are often cited as being unusual in the mammalian world for our penchant for monogamy. Many social critics claim that this is an oppressive social norm forced on women (always specifically women) by the patriarchy to enslave them into becoming breeding cattle. I argue that this is utterly wrong and human monogamy is a direct consequence of concealed ovulation, paternal uncertainty and the complete uselessness of human children for the first 5 years (at least) of life. All of these factors put humans at the extreme end of the K-side in r/K selection (go look it up, I don’t have the energy to go down that rabbit hole). Yes, it doesn’t change the fact that men still have those zillions of sperm raring to be ejaculated in new and interesting places; it also doesn’t change the fact that women want a man with as much wealth, status and resources as possible, but as I said before, monogamy is a compromise on the part of both parties making the best out of a bad situation. Many men still would occasionally satisfy their deep-seated biological urges with low-risk third parties (like prostitutes) in which the chances of yet another woman making demands on his scant resources were minimal. Likewise, women tolerated this because it was a low probability of him leaving her holding the bag. For their part, women would encourage (read: nag) men to improve themselves and their social station to try and make more money or gain more influence. The perfect picture of domestic bliss.
Monogamy is an odd institution because it’s simultaneously natural and unnatural. As I’ve said in previous essays, humans are like onions; we have layers of conflicting desires built one on top of another from the various parts of our ancient evolutionary brains. Our reptilian, mammalian, neo-cortical and spiritual sides are all locked in a battle royale. On one hand, it’s natural for a man to want to stick it in every hole he can find, but on the flip side, it’s natural to want to care for your offspring to ensure their chances of survival. For women, on one hand, it’s natural to want to find the man with the most possible resources (the king or chief), but in that case, you’re most likely going to be competing with several different women for his attention. Therefore, it’s also natural to want to find a decent guy with decent resources who won’t run away and you have all to yourself.
The major rub here is that sex, love and reproduction were all inextricably linked. It was very, very unlikely that you have one without the others coming along for the ride. Our very hormones themselves alter after the birth of a child (for men and women) making it much more likely that mom and dad will stick around and care for that helpless little blob. These are things that are hard-wired into us. You’re not going to change it, at least not with current technology. However, that playbook; the one that got us from the Savannah all the way to airplanes, interchangeable parts, the polio vaccine and indoor plumbing got completely torched with one invention.
The Pill
Those of you who read my previous piece will already know that I consider this to be the most Earth-shattering, life altering invention ever in human history. First approved by the FDA in 1960, this little pack of hormones made possible things that humanity never before dreamed of. Sex, love and reproduction, arguably the most formative phenomena of human evolution, were no longer linked. The world envisioned in Stranger in a Strange Land (published one year after the Pill was approved) was not speculative; it really was possible for people to live in group marriages and sex communes without the messiness of children entering the picture.
And that’s exactly what people did. With gusto. Like a college kid going on a bender at his 21st birthday, the drought was over. No longer would the chains of biology enslave us and repress us. No longer would we have to choose between plodding bourgeois monogamy and family or celibacy. No longer would women have to be so circumspect about who they took to bed. No longer would men have to think twice about having a one-night stand with that hot girl he doesn’t really like that much but has a great rack. As long as she’s on the Pill, all bets are off; no harm, no foul. Everyone gets their various rocks off, then walks away as if nothing ever happened. As easy as playing a game of Gin-Rummy but more fun.
“Intentional communities” (I really hate that term) like Sandstone (counting The Joy of Sex author Alex Comfort and Sammy Davis Jr. as members) and Kerista sprung up practically overnight. The Summer of Love and Woodstock firmly established that consequence-free casual sex and promiscuity were here to stay. The swinging 70s moved it from young free thinkers into the suburbs and the bourgeois community at large. Key parties and swinging became part of the cultural lexicon. Ordinary people began to question what radicals and academics had been questioning for decades; are the expectations of matrimony, nuclear family, monogamy and fidelity a scam? Why do we voluntarily subordinate our urges to outdated social structures? Why do we put a higher value on responsibility and commitment (which can certainly be a drag sometimes) than we do on pleasure, fulfillment and liberation? And the clarion call that still resonates to this day “IT’S NOT NATURAL!”
As stated above, this is true. It’s also not true. It’s also irrelevant. The human situation is one that is much more complex than any 60s sexual radical could conceive of. The millions of years of evolution leading us to this point has, again, created many contradictory urges within us. The onion-like human psyche is far more complicated than than a philosophy of “if it feels good, do it” can contain. But, easy pleasure is a siren song that is very hard to resist. One immediate social consequence of this revolution was a drastic increase in divorce. No doubt, this was a life saver to many people in lousy marriages, but to others it was the first inklings of the “broken homes” and “mixed families” that are ubiquitous today. The mainstreaming of so-called “alternative lifestyles” (another term I hate) would probably have continued apace except for one unfortunate complication.
AIDS
To middle and late Gen-Xers like myself, I have never known a sexual world that did not have the specter of these four letters hanging over it. Previously, STDs were a mild inconvenience. Picked up the clap at the sex party last weekend? Just go get your shot and you’re good for the party next weekend. Even permanent diseases like herpes were NBD; just rub some cream on it and wait for the acute outbreak to go away.
But what a way to go…
Now, however, there was a badass new kid on the block and he wasn’t taking shit from anyone. No vaccine. No cure. Bringing about a horrible, painful, slow and humiliating death. It definitely changed the landscape of relationships and sex toward the more conservative. It’s an interesting coincidence that it just happened to occur during the Reagan Revolution and the New Moral Majority. Since anal sex was and is a much easier way to contract the disease, and since, on average, gay men tend to have more lifetime sex partners than straights and lesbians, AIDS first exploded among male gays. This was not only devastating to the community at large, but adding insult to injury, Social Conservatives used it to take potshots at gays calling AIDS “gay cancer” and “divine retribution” for their “deviant lifestyle”.
People like myself who came of age at this time were relentlessly bombarded with PSAs about how sex will kill you and, if you decide to be an idiot and have sex in spite of our warnings, don’t even *think* about not using a condom; you might as well just give a .357 a blowjob. It’s telling about the overwhelming strength of uncontrolled human sexuality that it took the threat of death to reign it in. Monogamy, sexual restraint and conventional family, never completely abandoned in the first place, came screaming back to overturn the sexual revolution for one brief moment, because the perceived alternative was Russian Roulette. This image was not helped by the fact that many prominent individuals known for their promiscuity contracted and/or died of HIV (Magic Johnson, Eazy-E, Liberace, Freddy Mercury and, more recently, Charlie Sheen).
However, time marches on and human ingenuity is a wonderful thing. New drugs and treatments started cranking out and, while initially very expensive, have become more or less available to anyone that has contracted the disease. Magic Johnson has been living with the virus for decades and seems as healthy as ever. HIV/AIDS was no longer an automatic death sentence; if, in fact, it was ever as big of a threat as it was portrayed in the first place. Some conspiracy-minded libertines maintain that the AIDS scare was trumped up as worse than it actually was to try and purposely counteract the promiscuous tendencies of the previous two decades. Regardless, it had the intended effect until the mid-late 90s when all of a sudden it just didn’t seem like that big of a deal anymore. Sleep around, but use a condom; it would definitely suck to catch it, but if you did it’s not automatically the end. You take drugs for life and, in some cases, the virus won’t even be detectable in your blood. You can even have HIV-negative children using advanced reproductive technologies. The beast of human sexuality was not completely unshackled as it was in the 60s and 70s, but it was let out of the cage and given a long leash.
Tinder, Hook-Ups and #metoo
So here we sit. The sexual revolution mostly back in full swing, so-called “alternative lifestyles” are very much en vogue again. To be fair, people were swinging, making “arrangements” with their spouses and creating sexual sub-cultures all throughout the AIDS scare, but it was definitely more underground and seen as dangerous and shameful. Now, these choices are out in the open big time and sometimes portrayed by the intelligentsia as superior to plodding, bourgeois monogamy; a middle ground between the new ground rules of non-child-bearing recreational sex and the continuing desire for stability and family. Perhaps it’s true. I suppose time will tell.
Sexuality among adolescents and young adults went through a secondary revolution of its own. It’s completely ridiculous to think that teenagers and students weren’t constantly having sex for centuries before the current era. However, many times these unions would involve quite a bit of emotional seriousness due to the looming specter of pregnancy. People married young and typically stayed married. The new rules of sex, intersecting with technology, made having sex more similar to ordering a pizza than a complicated dance of courtship and emotions. In many ways, the sexual revolution had reached its ultimate goal; totally unfettered, (mostly) consequence-free sex on demand. Just swipe right and you’re off to the races. For large swaths of young people, intercourse had become akin to a handshake.
As stated, and the theme of this plodding piece of mental excrement, is that human nature is never so simple and it’s not easily altered. You see, going along with the Savannah Principle (the idea that our brains haven’t changed much since the days of Oog and Ug), doubts, fears and general despair and dysphoria began to creep in to this arrangement. In spite of what the sexual revolutionaries had been saying for decades, intercourse is *not* a handshake, and even barring the physical consequences of pregnancy and disease there are emotional consequences of sex.
Recapping from earlier, on the Savannah, Oog and Ug have intrinsically competitive sexual strategies. This can be traced back to the fact that Oog has to carry the baby, then birth it and take care of it. This all comes at the a huge economic and physical cost; all to produce one lousy human. Ug, while his urges to impregnate as many women as possible are very strong, he also must protect his genetic legacy. Human babies are so useless for such a long time that there is a much higher probability that they will survive if they have two parents looking after them. Compound this with the fact that women have a much higher reproductive economic value; finite number of eggs and only able to carry one baby at a time vs. men’s zillions of sperm and ability to impregnate a theoretically arbitrary number of women; and further compound it with concealed ovulation and parental uncertainty, we have quite a complex social situation. Nature has concocted a cocktail of wonderful things to overcome this complexity; female orgasm, penis size, oxytocin, vasopressin, sexual jealousy among other things combine to bond mates together with strong emotions.
As if things weren’t already complicated enough, men and women are both hypergamous; ie: they want to “marry up”. This means very different things to men and women. Women’s reproductive value is derived from beauty and youth, so men want to find young, beautiful women with whom to mate. Men’s reproductive value is derived from strength and capability at procuring resources for mom and baby, so, in the old cliche, women prefer a big wallet to a big dick. I don’t pretend to have all the answers to these complexities. There are entire philosophies inquiring on the nature of love. Love, lust and sex have probably motivated the creation of more art than anything else in history (with the possible exception of religion). In drastic understatement, human familial relationships are very complicated. It’s no wonder there would eventually be a backlash against the often simple-minded form that they take today.
#MeToo
At first started by women coming out to claim that they had been victims of rape/assault and were too ashamed to say anything until now, it has now morphed into a sinister condemnation of male sexuality. Acting like a tactless boor is enough to get you #metoo’ed and potentially put your family and livelihood in jeopardy. Again, at the risk of over-simplifying, this can all be traced back to women giving up their leverage in the sexual marketplace. The ingrained biological behaviors from the Savannah cannot be forgotten or dismissed so easily. To put it bluntly, pussy used to be scarce and expensive, now it’s plentiful and cheap. The supply and demand have been drastically altered from the way things were for essentially all of human history up until 50 years ago (less than the blink of an eye in the grand scheme of things). Men behave like boors and expect easy sex because those are the new rules of the game. Men have always wanted easy sex, but the possibility/likelihood of pregnancy incentivized women to keep pussy scarce and expensive; after all, they had a much higher cost associated with sex. This was their leverage, and it was the most powerful leverage known to humanity. Women have always had the upper hand in sexual relationships because of this, in spite of what pop culture and half-baked feminist theories argue. Women certainly got a raw deal when it came to political freedom and, in some cases, arranged marriage. I do not trivialize the treatment women sometimes got as second-class citizens. These were strategies concocted by male-dominated institutions to try and wrestle some control back from the omnipotent vagina. But, it is always in vain because pussy is the ultimate trump card. Men want it. Women have it. And women ultimately decide who gets it, in spite of social constructs designed to contravene that power.
#Metoo, in my opinion, is a reaction by women who find they don’t especially like the results of the revolution. They feel cheated that they no longer have that leverage, even though their Savannah brain is telling them they should. They feel used and cheap and, in many cases, through no fault of their own, they are. To try and win back some of the control they lost through biology, they now are, consciously or unconsciously, using the apparatus of the State and public shaming to try and reel in male sexual fervor. I’ve always thought it self-evident that male and female sexuality are different, but complementary. Men are the engine and women are the transmission. Men are filled with drive and energy and power; a walking hard-on looking for a hole. Women channel that energy from unfocused sexual excess into a sublimation of productivity, art, engineering, etc. Thus things have been since G-d said, “Let there be light”. Now, the transmission has lost its ability to direct the power of the engine; running out of control, the engine tears apart millennia of tradition, family structure and personal motivation. Both sexes perhaps should be more careful what they wish for.
The ultimate purpose of this tome is not to answer any questions, provide predictions or suggest how things can be “fixed”. There *is* nothing to fix. Things are what they are now. The toothpaste is not going back in the tube. Who knows what the future holds? Perhaps some new, even more badass STD will (likely temporarily) push people back to their old ways of sexual restraint. Perhaps the swingers and polyamorists are right that monogamy no longer has a purpose and will be phased out, paving the way for group marriages or some other such arrangement. Due to the hard wiring in our brains, I doubt this is something that would happen on a large scale anytime soon, however. More likely, we’re going to continue escalating the sex war to some kind of breaking point. What comes after that is anyone’s guess. We are indeed cursed to live in interesting times.
My favorite show was the Dukes of Hazzard. I think that had a big impact on me. I don’t know of any other show on TV that was so anti-authoritarian and so subversive while appearing to be nothing more than country kitsch. The authorities were corrupt, venal, petty and incompetent. Which almost made it a documentary. The Duke family were loving, fun, and had cool cars. And they never meant anyone any harm, even the corrupt government trying to destroy them. I didn’t realize for decades how formative that show was, but it set the stage later.
First, despite the petition having about 70% of the parents and students at the school signing on, Mrs. Sandy was passed over for the bitchy-bitch. The board accepted the petition, but they didn’t even look it over or read it. I mean, after all, what do the peasants and their children know about education?
The final piece was a principled lefty prof, my adviser. In an age of ‘speech is violence’, no platforming, and all the rest of the Ctrl Left totalitarianism, it sounds odd that a lefty prof might recommend such kulaks and wreckers as HL Mencken, Rothbard, Milton Friedman, FA Hayek, and the like to a student discovering his politics seems unimaginable. But it happened. Because Mr. Collins was a liberal, but he was also a man who felt he had a duty to his students, and who took the goal of educating his students into thinking for themselves quite seriously.
And that’s exactly what people did. With gusto. Like a college kid going on a bender at his 21st birthday, the drought was over. No longer would the chains of biology enslave us and repress us. No longer would we have to choose between plodding bourgeois monogamy and family or celibacy. No longer would women have to be so circumspect about who they took to bed. No longer would men have to think twice about having a one-night stand with that hot girl he doesn’t really like that much but has a great rack. As long as she’s on the Pill, all bets are off; no harm, no foul. Everyone gets their various rocks off, then walks away as if nothing ever happened. As easy as playing a game of Gin-Rummy but more fun.
