A mild rant (mild for me, anyway)

When I started my “All Worked Up” column and, subsequently, this blog, I didn’t intend to necessarily become a “sex-and-politics” spokesman. My original goal was to simply rant about the little things, about how there are very few decent porn movies, my obsession with breasts, my admittedly bizarre crush on Emma Thompson, and so forth. Looking back at my writings, however, I’ve noticed a clearly political slant to practically everything I’ve put down. So, to those who say I’m probably TOO political, especially with regard to the Holy Terrors and their War on Whoopie:

They started it.

Me, I’m just an ordinary guy who likes getting laid, and I assume most people out there are just like me in that respect. Being the latter-day hippie that I am, I’ve long ago adopted a “live and let live” policy with regard to sex. Everybody’s got at least one kink, and since I can’t make sense of most of my own, (especially the Emma Thompson one), I don’t feel it’s appropriate to try to understand those of other people, let alone stand in judgment upon them.

In other words, whatever consenting adults do to get their rocks off is their own damn business and none of mine, and I just ask for the same courtesy with regard to my own kinks and turn-ons.

However, it hasn’t worked out that way.

For me, it first happened when I was about thirteen years old. My dad, an unusually enlightened fellow, had capped our little “entering manhood” discussion with a celebratory box of condoms. He figured that if I truly wanted to experiment with sex, there was no damn way he could stop me from doing so. By buying me birth control, he not only made sure that if I played, I played safe, and that I knew he’d rather I go to him for information than trying to sneak around and obtain it from other sources.

Dad asked me if there was anything else I needed, and I said, “Yeah. How about a Playboy magazine?”

I’d seen them before, at friends’ houses, in their dad’s basements and stuff. Since my own father was being so generous about it, I figured, why not shoot for the moon?

To my surprise, Dad said, “Okay.” Again, he figured I’d get the magazine anyway, he might as well make sure I didn’t get caught shoplifting it or something.

So, together, we went down to the local convenience store and purchased a Playboy. It was the Playmate of the Year issue, as I recall. Monique something-or-other was on the cover.

The Playboys were kept behind the convenience store’s counter, so my dad had to ask for a copy. The clerk asked him something about whether he liked it or not, and my dad said, “It’s not for me, it’s for my son.”

A pair of old biddies were sitting nearby, drinking coffee, and they laid into Dad, saying how disgraceful it was that he was corrupting his own son.

Dad looked them straight in the eye and he said, “Maybe I am. But he’s my son and it’s none of your goddam business.”

(Dad’s from the south, and down there they tend to swear in single words. Goddam. Sumbitch. Fuckinasshole.)

Ever since then, I’ve been aware that for everyone who wants to enjoy sex in its various forms, there are at least three self-righteous fuckinassholes who would rather sit in judgment and cast stones, instead of minding their own goddam business. Most of these sumbitches are cut from the same cloth. Holier-than-thou. Seeing the world in black-and-white. Sin is everywhere. I’m going to heaven. You’re not. Reagan rocks.

Worse, as years have gone by it’s become much more than letting a teenaged kid look at pictures of naked women. It’s become beating up gay people. It’s become telling women it’s better to be dead than sexually active. It’s become shutting down free expression. It’s become battering down peoples’ bedroom doors and invading their most intimate spaces.

In my time upon this earth, I’ve met many, many interesting people with a wide diversity of sexual interests; from the slightly kinky to fun-loving freaks to the seriously deranged. They’re all good people, not withstanding their funky ways to get their rocks off. In fact, that funky sexual element is part of what makes them interesting. They don’t deserve to be persecuted and judged by self-righteous assholes who have nothing better to do than condemn them as sinners, or worse, try to take away everything they have just because they can.

I admit I like politics. However, I like sex more. I’d much rather wax rhapsodic on nipples, erotic books, and Emma Thompson’s lips than on things like Congress, the President, the Constitution, and all the rest of that shit. However, if the Holy Terrors won’t leave me and my like-minded friends alone, I’ve got no choice but to fight back. You ain’t busting down MY bedroom door.

Rant over. You may now return to your regularly scheduled programming.