In Praise Of Sexual Deviants And The Gender Side Show - Being Straight Is So Boring

Roberta Pollard (formerly Robert Pollard) was a happy woman.  Finally, at long last, and after a long time coming, she was recognized as the woman she had become, not the freak she had been called only a few years earlier.  Now, thanks to the efforts of those political partisans who had championed the gender spectrum, transgenderism, and sexual freedom, she was now called Ms Pollard, had doors opened for her, flowers given, and polite and generous attention paid by saleswomen at Saks.  

She was in her element, free from the constriction of the wrong genitalia, from presumptions about behavior and attitude, and simply, once and for all, her own woman.

Halloween in the Castro, the Bay to Breakers parade, or the Folsom Street Fair – exhibitionist gay pride in full public view – were championed by social activists as the final outing of a long-repressed and –oppressed community.  The raw exhibitionism – whips, chains, leather, tethers, dog collars, and harnesses – was a sign of release, righteousness, and a loud and very deserving fuck you to the Establishment.  

Although Roberta was a woman of temperance and good taste and could never imagine herself in the sexual charrettes of San Francisco, she cheered them on as the avant-garde of the final sexual revolution, the burying of heterosexuality and the final dismissal of those religious and social injunctions against sexual diversity.

While acceptance of the ‘other’ was becoming the norm in modern America, such gender transformations were still for many hard to swallow.  The snickers and snide remarks would not go away; and as much as Roberta insisted that she paid no attention, she spent thousands of dollars on depilatories, creams, and Hollywood make up.  There was no disguising her oversized and very un-genteel looks, however, and the more she tried to hide them, the more deviant she looked, clownlike, and more side show than Park Avenue. 

It is no surprise that this out-front, aggressive sexuality is American in origin, importance, and visibility.  While other countries may tolerate sexual aberration – India has long accepted hijra, ‘intersexed’, transgender men who are thought auspicious and welcomed at weddings – there is none of the circus atmosphere, spectacularly outrageous burlesque shows, transgender runways, and Las Vegas strip dancing girls increasingly common in America.  There is certainly no such thing in Russia, Poland, Ukraine, Singapore, or China. 

In America everything is subject to radical change or dismissal.  Whether the Bible or the Constitution, who says they are foundational? Nothing doing.  As Derrida, Lacan, and European Deconstructionists have long argued, there is no such thing as inherent or absolute value.  All is relative, subject to the random forces of society and history, and understood only within that context.  Sexuality is no more than a social construct enforced by patriarchy and its institutions of church and state.  Sexual configuration is no more than a historical imperative, necessary to assure the continuation of the human race. If such heterosexuality were to be marginalized in a radical reconfiguration of social norms or better yet disappear through genetic engineering, life would simply be following its own determined fate.

The American public is as fickle as a woman with h many suitors and is happily untethered to any notions of anything absolute (even the Biblical God changed his mind about the survival of the human race, and Job himself challenged God’s authenticity), so as much as traditionalists may howl, the train has left the station.  

In a world of fantasy, illusion, Hollywood, and Las Vegas there is no room for Aquinas, Augustine, Kant, Descartes, or Russell.

Revival meetings and Barnum & Bailey circuses are the perfect analogies for the anything-goes sexual revolution.  The days of quiet reflection and Puritan penitence are long gone.  The carrels of university libraries are empty.  All is exuberant, unrestrained public display.  

Life is an everyday Halloween, a 24/7 vaudeville act, a bearded lady side show always open for admission.  Televangelists like Jimmy Swaggart, Robert Tilton, and Jonathan Bell are cheap operatic hussies, shameless, and lurid; but such hucksters have existed long before television.  In fact the history of American fundamentalism is the history of wild, tearful, big tent preachers whose performances are no different than those in the Big Top. 

American politics has been just as fanciful, outrageous, and unbelievable.  Who could invent the Reverend Al Sharpton, former ambulance-chaser, racial opportunist, and civil rights groupie turned sanctimonious television political commentator? The suspension of disbelief is extraordinary, the lionization of this racial charlatan incredible; yet this is America where reinventing oneself is a parlor game. 

The lying political opportunists like John Edwards and Newt Gingrich who left sickly wives for younger women are no different; or Bill Clinton who parsed the English language like a a high wire acrobat when it came to the definition of sex, or Mark Sanford who ran off for a tryst with his Argentine firecracker while claiming he was hiking the Appalachian trail all belonged in a bad version of a melodramatic operatic stage.

So, why not bears, Folsom beastie boys, and pick-ups on the gender spectrum?  It is time for conservatives, evangelicals, and Midwesterners to get on the bandwagon, go to the sexual circus, get on the gender merry-go-round, and enjoy the gender-twisted runway shows at the Las Vegas Luxor.

Roberta had been invited many times to adult gender reveal parties, fashioned after the traditional gender reveal parties for pregnant women where family and friend celebrate the sex of the child ‘revealed’ (thanks to DNA testing) by the mother. 

These adult parties, however, have a particular Halloween, Mardi Gras cast to them.  Individual men and women are introduced to a gathering of mixed-gender guests who are then asked to guess the sexual preference of the invitee.  They do this like a game of charades, asking suggestive, leading questions.  

Some of the possible gender categories are Ambonec, Anesigender, Boyflux, Caelgender, Paragender, Vapogender, and Vibragender – all taken from Tumblr’s list of 121.  To hide their true identity, invitees may act in misleading ways, dress counter-gender, or speak in false allusions.

Gender transformation can be fun, and there is no end to parading, guessing, prancing, swishing, and swaggering at these parties. Straight men and women are invited for laughs, and join in the game.  

Adult gender parties are becoming more and more popular the more the notion of gender fluidity spreads.  There are at least five different television shows in the works featuring gender reveal guests and fashioned after the old ‘What’s My Line’ shows of the 50s.

The more traditional American culture is uprooted in favor of identity, the more anything goes.  In this secular, post-modern world of relative value, text, and historical irrelevance there is room for absolutely everything.  There are no criteria for political office, preaching, or sexual orientation.  

Taken as a whole, American popular culture today is a raucous, disassociated, fickle, and absurdly entertaining phenomenon.  Although progressive activists, politicians, preachers and those in their thrall take themselves seriously, few others do.

For those who have hung on too long to pedantic seriousness and ignored the ridiculousness of absurd claims, a final release, an epiphany, and the happy revelation that none of it matters in a sit back and enjoy the show moment will be welcome indeed. And it will come.  There is no way that such a collective sanctimony will not turn Baroque and Rococo – impossibly filigreed and ornate, turned inward on itself into a mocking self portrait.

So, don’t worry, be happy.  Pick a spot on the gender spectrum and have fun with it.  Stop finding fault, taking umbrage, feeling angry.  Enjoy the doings of Armageddon-believing environmentalists, One World fantasists, and equality freaks.  Admission is free and a good time for all is guaranteed.

Gone With The Wind–The Old South, Strong Women, And The Corruption Of Revisionist History

The movie version of Gone with the Wind now comes with an advisory about the film’s racial issues and suggestions as to how to interpret them.  The movie represents a time and place far different from our own, the advisory says, so it should be seen as a period piece, a drama whose characters have relevance for today, but whose social mores do not.

In other words, the owners to the rights of the film know that it still is one of the most popular movies of all time, but have bowed to progressives who condemn it and who say that it romanticizes slavery and the enabling culture of the old South.   The owners want it both ways.

The movie, of course, is no apologia for slavery nor for the Old South.  The antebellum period features only in the early scenes of the movie while the rest of the film is about the precipitous and ignorant rush to war, its utter ruin of the South, and the disastrous Reconstruction period.  

For most historians the depiction of these periods of Southern history is accurate; and for most critics the film is the story of a willful woman whose determination to save Tara, her family plantation home, is not about the restoration of slavery but about personal identity, family history, and courage.

Scarlett O’Hara is but one of many strong women in literature who defy patriarchy, circumstance, and history to achieve their own ends. Shakespeare was a master at portraying feminine ambition.  Tamora, Dionyza, and Volumnia among other women were indeed vixens who, in the name of honor, children, inheritance, or legacy had little to do with the men in their lives except to exploit them.  

Women of the Renaissance worked their wiles behind the scenes, catering to husbands and lovers to gain traction and power.  

Victorian women were no different.  Hedda Gabler, Rebekka West, and Hilde Wangel were insatiable in their pursuit of authority and influence.

In all three cases – the Renaissance, Victorian Scandinavia, and the antebellum South – society was ordered, controlled, and mannered.  From a male perspective it was ideal.  Women were in their place, God was right and in His heaven, and few aberrations to the social contract were even considered.  From a female perspective, the world was upside down.  Women were clearly the more intelligent sex – more insightful, more able, and more determined – and since there was no point in challenging the status quo per se, the avenues to emotional and financial prosperity and influence would have to be devious.

Neither Shakespeare, Ibsen, Strindberg, or Mitchell apologized for their characters’ aggressive pursuit of power, control, and dominance.  All understood that, given women’s equal intelligence, native will, and social ambition, they would best men at every turn.  

Shakespeare’s Comedic and Romantic heroes were women – Rosalind, Portia, and their sisters ran rings around the men who courted them.  The scene in The Merchant of Venice where Portia invites her suitors to guess the contents of the lead, silver, and gold boxes to gain her love is iconic. Each and every man is a parody of manhood – arrogantly and ignorantly confident, pompous, and comic.

Shakespeare was harshly realistic in his portrayal of the Queen of the Amazons or the mother of Coriolanus – these women were as acquisitive and hungry as any man – but he was far more realistic in the character of his Comedic heroines.  There was nothing wrong with a little melodramatic trickery in pursuit of an ideal love or practical marriage.

Today the antebellum South is looked at by many in only one way – as a racist, slave-owning, retrograde, evil and forgettable society; and in the opinion of progressive critics it’s history must be erased, expunged from current memory, debased, marginalized, dismissed, and eliminated.  

Yet because the antebellum South had grace, elegance, manners, a code of honor and respect, and a way of life that embraced the best of Anglo-European high culture, it is indelible.  Particularly in today’s harshly secular, divided, and angrily contentious society, the gentility and manners of the old South are appealing.

The antebellum South was indeed a different place, a different culture;  and James McPherson of the New York Review of Books described the difference as that between Cavalier and Yankee. The Southern gentry believed that they were descended from English aristocracy and earlier to the Normans, and continued that ‘cavalier’, chivalric and heroic tradition in the United States.  It is that very chivalric, gracious tradition that has been attractive to wide audiences.

The genius of Downton Abbey is that it allows proper, democratic-minded Americans who question the notion of aristocracy, inherited wealth, property, and privilege to enjoy themselves.  Downton Abbey” is today’s “Gone With the Wind.” We can enjoy the excesses it depicts partly because we know that the elite in real life has had its comeuppance. Better still, when it comes to class, privilege and wealth, “Downton Abbey” lets us have our cake and eat it, too. 

The show gives us a voyeuristic peek at the pleasures of being an Edwardian aristocrat while allowing us to feel superior to him. We delight in Downton Abbey’s fancy table settings, elegant clothes, formal gardens, precise speech, and impeccable manners, but we know that their way of life is ending.

The appeal of Gone with the Wind is borne of the same guilty pleasure.  We would like, despite everything, to own Tara, to be lords of the manor and to live in luxury with elegance, good manners, and taste.

Pilgrimage is an event held in many towns in the Deep South to celebrate the antebellum period.   The houses are grand, and most of them have been restored with care and authenticity by owners who want to preserve the antebellum part of Southern history. They are often
descendants of the plantation owners who lived there and want to relive a part of their past, or simply those who love old houses, antiques, and historical appointments.

Yet today’s progressivism demands a total, unequivocal, unforgiving rejection of the South, its origins, traditions, and culture.  Attending a Southern pilgrimage is tantamount to racism.  It is giving comfort to the enemy, it is a betrayal of Northern progressive values, it is an unconscionable embrace of the worst society America has created.

Gone with the Wind is or at least should be an eloquent answer to historical revisionists, not a rallying point for their hostility and accusation.  It should also be an answer to feminists who criticize the pretty, flighty, and socially unconscious Scarlett, for if anything she is an ur-woman, a feminist hero who has no moral impingement, who uses men just as they have used women, and who is far superior to them. 

Most importantly it should be enjoyed for what it is - a romance, a melodramatic recreation of a storied period of history, a drama of courage and ambition, a film with luxurious sets and costumes, compelling plot, and a gorgeous heroine.

Abortion And The Demonstrations Of The Righteous–Solidarity, Camaraderie, And Missing The Whole Point

There were lots of happy smiles at the most recent Pro-Choice demonstrations and a lot of happy people marching in the heady solidarity of common purpose.  There were hugs, children, supportive men, pink fur and banners, a Fourth of July parade with all the hoopla but without the fireworks.  It felt good to be among friends, arm-in-arm marching up the Mall to Congress, to toss hats in the air in celebration, to share kisses and phone numbers, and in one fell swoop be done with COVID, masks, and social inhibition and show support for perhaps the cause of the century.  Global warming may be the existential peril it is touted to be; Black Lives Matter may be the final nail in the white supremacists' coffin; and the gender spectrum may finally represent the long-waited reconfiguration of human sexuality; but abortion was about women, half the earth’s population, its mother, its birthing agent, its creator and most importantly, female supremacy.

A woman’s dominion over her own body symbolizes reproductive control, rational motherhood, and female dignity; but more than anything it is a defiance of male patriarchy, smugness, feeble-minded, testosterone-driven fantasy, and barroom boorishness. The other issues lining the progressive agenda can wait.  This is the Year Zero, the defining moment for women, their Roncesvalles, their line in the sand, their moment of defeat or victory.

So the joyful celebrations on the Mall were well-fueled with female passion and ambition , an explosive mix of social solidarity, righteous anger, and political commitment.  Each march was an all-or-nothing moment, one to be recorded for children and grandchildren, a defining moment and one which showed goodness and righteousness to progeny and the watching world. 

Of course, this and other previous demonstrations have done nothing to persuade the courts, and in particular the Supreme Court, that Roe v Wade was correctly ruled.  Conservative jurists, most notably the late Chief Justice Antonin Scalia, a man of intellect, juridical temperance, and originalist thinking; and one ferociously independent and free from non-legal public opinion, have had their doubts about Roe.  ‘Privacy’ as interpreted by the Roe-favorable Warren Court has nothing to do with such an existential issue, ignoring as it does any more profound notion of life and existence whether immediate or future.

Equally disturbing is the fact that moral questions concerning abortion have been largely if not totally ignored in a debate which has exclusively focused on civil rights, jurisprudence, social justice, and gender.  Yet these moral issues concerning the nature and value of life within a broader philosophical, religious, and spiritual context are equally if not more important.

Pope John Paul II was forthright, explicit, and uncompromising when he spoke of the moral morass of expediency, and was perhaps the most unforgiving critic of abortion, stating in his Evangelum Vitae:

The encyclical states that today “in many people's consciences, the perception of its gravity has become progressively obscured”.This is manifested in the everyday way of thinking, in people’s habits and also in the state legislation itself. All this “is a telling sign of an extremely dangerous crisis of the moral sense, which is becoming more and more incapable of distinguishing between good and evil, even when the fundamental right to life is at stake”. This is a serious and really grave situation when “we need now more than ever to have the courage to look the truth in the eye and to call things by their proper name, without yielding to convenient compromises or to the temptation of self-deception...

Pope Francis has also spoken eloquently about expediency and how unrestricted, unlimited access to abortion makes life dispensable and subject to secular whim.  Francis has added a new, modern dimension to his criticism.  Not only does abortion-on-demand demean the life of mother, father, and child but diminishes the very sanctity of life itself.    If all life is endowed by the Creator, then an indifferent disregard for it in one area fosters disregard for it in all others.  How can one be serious about the environment, Francis said – serious about the life of all forms that exist within it – with such a dismissive disregard for human life? Francis in his recent Encyclical focusing on environmental issues said:

Since everything is interrelated, concern for the protection of nature is also incompatible with the justification of abortion. How can we genuinely teach the importance of concern for other vulnerable beings, however troublesome or inconvenient they may be, if we fail to protect a human embryo, even when its presence is uncomfortable and creates difficulties? If personal and social sensitivity towards the acceptance of the new life is lost, then other forms of acceptance that are valuable for society also wither away.

Unusually ecumenical, Francis spoke in Hindu terms, citing the inherent value of all life. All life is interrelated.  No one living thing is disassociated from any other:

Hinduism teaches that the five great elements (space, air, fire, water, and earth) that constitute the environment are all derived from prakriti, the primal energy. Each of these elements has its own life and form; together the elements are interconnected and interdependent. The Upanishads explains the interdependence of these elements in relation to Brahman, the supreme reality, from which they arise: “From Brahman arises space, from space arises air, from air arises fire, from fire arises water, and from water arises earth.”

Thomas Jefferson and his colleagues founded the new republic to be consistent with both secular democracy and religious principle.  According to Jefferson, while the law is based on Locke’s rights of man and is a procedural tool for adjudicating disputes, it is also based on the “God-given rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”.  The American political system was to be a moral one, based on religious principles.  Jefferson would be surprised and sorely disappointed to see how legalistic, procedural, and devoid of a sound philosophical and religious base society has become.

Sooner or later both sides of the abortion debate will realize that morality, far from being divisive, is common ground.  Moral principles form the foundation for society; and they are indeed universal.  Whether inspired by the Bible or reflected in the texts of moral philosophers, they cannot be ignored.

Given the current, increasing, and insistent secularization of the issue of abortion; and given its central place in the progressive ethos, such a more inclusive view is unlikely.  Those in favor of abortion find philosophy irritating and irrelevant.  It is pointless to read religious philosophy, whether Christian or other, they say, for the written, historical word is only part of a narrative, giving witness to stories but without absolute meaning.  Progressives have adopted Lacan and Derrida as their philosophers, and Post-Modernism their only, exclusive philosophy.  As such, current issues and events must be seen only through a secular, social lens – one whose filters are race, gender, and ethnicity.

There can be no compromise on abortion.  Those who are against it do so on the basis of moral and religious principle – foundational ideas central to their identity and world view.  Those who are for it are equally convinced of the correctness of their post-modern, secular, contextual world, and their own progressive identity.  Disavowing support for abortion would be automatic, arbitrary dismissal from the big tent.

In any case, the marches on the Mall come and go, and the more frequent and angry they are, the fewer people tune in.  Most observers feel that the issue is far more complex than the one celebrated in happy protest, and that it will be decided in the courts and ultimately the Supreme Court.  It will take more time for secularization to be slowed and the more subtle arguments of the past to be revisited and considered, but eventually the country will return to its Jeffersonian roots.