the inevitable result

"The closet cases are going to kill us all."  (J. Hamsher, July 2006)

Alternate post title: Uncle Tom’s Closet, Part 2. 

My sainted brother called my attention to this post at Aluciblog today about the (some would say inevitable) collapse of Rod Dreher’s "Crunchy Conservative" movement and what Dreher is being forced to write about to get his kicks now.

To wit:

CRUNCHY CONS GO DOWNMARKET. I see that Rod Dreher has moved his Crunchy Con blog to Beliefnet. Time has not been kind to his movement, and it seems the come-down in venue has made Dreher more anxious to boost his conservative niche brand into the big time: he’s talking less now about the relation of medieval theology to organic food, and more about gay toilet sex:

…a gay Republican male — very successful guy, well-dressed, in the public limelight, not at all a desperate troll — told me that this was a pretty normal part of gay male culture. He told me that he used to cruise public toilets looking for sex, in part because the stench of those locales smelled like "nectar"…

…what are the rest of us supposed to think about gay male culture, and the degree to which it self-defines according to behavior that most people rightly find repulsive?… it’s pretty clear to me that the media, as a general rule, have a habit of sanitizing coverage that reflects badly on gay male culture… 

Yeah, the media never asks Elton John if he likes it up the ass in a crapper. (Maybe Dreher’s gay Republican friend can do a special report on Fox!)

This is one of those moments when you sit back from the computer and rub your eyes, thinking, "Did I just read that?"  Dreher’s statements are so wrong on so many levels that it’s hard to know where to begin.

But I’m up to that challenge.  I’m smart enough.  I’m good enough.  I have the technology.

Let’s start with this bit:

 …a gay Republican male — very successful guy, well-dressed, in the public limelight, not at all a desperate troll — told me that this was a pretty normal part of gay male culture. He told me that he used to cruise public toilets looking for sex, in part because the stench of those locales smelled like "nectar"…

*Frantically grabs wastebasket*

*Hurls*

Okay, I said I could do it.  I didn’t say that it wasn’t going to take an emotional and spiritual toll on me.  I mean, this guy just described the smell of a public crapper as "nectar"?!  *Hrrrrrrrrrrrk!!*, *HRRRRRRRRRRK!!*

Okay, hang on.  Let me catch my breath.   I’m okay.

*Wipes eyes*

Almost lost it again, there.  Easy, now. 

Okay, Dreher and his closeted buddy say, "(T)his was a pretty normal part of gay male culture. He told me that he used to cruise public toilets looking for sex…"

Okay, maybe it was a normal part of gay male culture, like, 40 years ago, but now the only people who do that are "straight" married men and junkies looking for wallets and other valuables to steal.  I came out of the closet when I was 14 or 15 years old.  I have been a practicing gay man for all of the 20 years since then.  I have never, ever, ever had sex in a public bathroom, never solicited sex from a stranger in a public place, and have only been approached and solicited in those kinds of situations by two men, ever, both of whom were wearing wedding bands. 

The only gays for whom this is "normal" are the ones who are trying to hide their orientation and are otherwise leading heterosexual lives.  Here is a statement I made in the first Uncle Tom’s Closet post:

And then, suddenly, it all makes perfect sense to me.  These people like the lies, the façades, the illicit nature of The Love that Dare Not Speak its Naaaaaame.  They like their homosexuality to be all about sex and nothing more.  Furtive meetings and assignations, sex in public cruising areas, marriages of convenience.  The whole notion of changing diapers, balancing checkbooks, buying a house, keeping a family clothed, educated, and nourished?  Anathema to the Gay Republican.  Why would you want to tutor your child in spelling when you could be doing poppers in a bath house with some anonymous hustler or playing poker with a military escort (*cough*!) at the Watergate?

It’s true.  Gay Republicans want to party like it’s 1959.

Let me explain something to you.  Gay men and women (and all the myriad orientations on the continuum between gay and straight) are a naturally occuring phenomenon.  Nobody knows why or by what biological mechanism, but God makes people with all kinds of sexual orientations because that is His will, for His purposes, and it’s not our place to question why.  Obviously, He has something in mind or He’d stop making us.

For a person with the wherewithal and fortitude to honor God’s choice for them, life is pretty great internally.  It’s only when you tangle with the forces of hate in the world (like preachers, "Christians", and hypocritical legislators) that you run into trouble.  For some unfortunate souls, this external interference is enough to convince them that they should shroud their orientation in secrecy and attempt to "pass" as a heterosexual.

Sexual orientation is a fundamental and elemental force in a person’s soul.  It will not be denied.  People who attempt to smother it are doomed to fail in this endeavor.  The more they deny the promptings of their true nature, the louder and more insistent these urges become.  Since these people have denied themselves a legitimate outlet for these feelings, this neglected part of their nature becomes a rogue thought that begins to dominate their thinking and control their actions, evolving into an obsession.  This is what makes people like Dreher’s friend cruise the public toilets.  They’re being driven by an out-of-control instinct, so they seek to fulfill those needs in sordid and inappropriate ways.  In fact, this furtiveness and shame adds a certain frisson to their shadow-life.  They want their gay lifestyle secretive, dangerous, and dirty.  It’s the only way they know how to handle it.

What’s even worse, though, is the people whose denial runs even deeper than that.  What ultimately happens is that the rogue thought starts to ricochet around in their heads like a bullet fired in a bank vault.  It grows in power and intensity until it begins to disrupt all of their thinking, not just their thinking about sex and love.  It’s like a timing chain snapping in an car engine, whipping around and smashing everything it touches.  They go insane, and the next thing you know, they’re disrupting the funerals of U.S. service personnel and wearing a sandwich board that says, "GOD HATES FAGS".

Not all closet cases go to such extremes, however.  Most of them are content to sublimate their self-loathing into helping promote anti-gay legislation or working for people who do.  And that’s as far as I’m going to extrapolate that, although there are plenty of theorists who would tell you that many men desperately yearning for love and sexual contact with other men channel that longing into guns, missiles, and other phallic symbols.  (Are you listening, Chris Matthews?  Stop staring at the photo of Bush in his flight suit and LISTEN, you moron!)

Finally, I just want to point you to this University of Georgia study from 1996 which demonstrated conclusively that men identified as "homophobic" actually displayed signs of arousal when confronted with erotic images of other men.  Regular, non-homophobic heterosexual men displayed no arousal whatsoever.  Not their flavor.  It was the men who declared that they hated queers who felt (measurable!) stirrings in their trousers when shown images of naked men.  It is their uncontrolled, deeply-denied longing that makes them so hateful and fearful.  All they need is the love of a good man to help sort them out.  Look at Jeff Goldstein, that poor guy.  He’s like a case study for this syndrome.  Sad.

So, the next time some man or woman says to you that gays are immoral, filthy, sick, or evil, picture them wildly waving a tamborine on top of a speaker at some club called "The Anvil" or "Inferno".  That’s what they’re really saying to you.

"Gays are an abomination" really means, "Oh, God, I want to suck a dick sooooooo bad."  (Or kiss a pussy, in the ladies’ cases.)

Quod erat demonstrandum, all Republicans are gay.

Thank you and good night. 

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