F***ing with Freepers: Sex catapults me to the big time

Creative Loafing (Atlanta) ^ | 1/13/05 | CLIFF BOSTOCK

[madprof98]

Woo hoo! I've made the big time. Last month, the website Free Republic featured a thread about my Nov. 18 column, "Queers Who Don't Act Right." You probably don't know much about Free Republic unless you are a right-wing lunatic. Free Republic is so far right that wing-nut gay muckraker Matt Drudge and Lucianne Goldberg, one of the architects of the Clinton-Monica Lewinsky brouhaha, both left the site in 1999 because it was too extreme, even for them.

In the years since, the site has become the contemporary version of a marathon meeting of the old John Birch Society and the KKK. Most recently, Free Republic was in the news when John Corsi, one of the Swift Boat Veterans who authored a book attacking John Kerry, turned out to post embarrassingly racist messages there. (Of course, he argued his racist insults were all "a joke." Talk about your Clintonian rhetoric.) The site also was in the news recently because someone correctly posted that Dan Rather had relied on phony documents to impute President Bush's National Guard service.

Free Republic is so extreme that it's a blast to read. Don't bother to explore the site with the idea of posting an alternative perspective or to correct facts. Your post will simply be deleted, despite its owner's celebration of freedom of speech. The site has no hesitation in reprinting copyrighted material, like my column, even though the Washington Post and Los Angeles Times both successfully sued to stop such theft. In other words, as is generally true of the lunatic far right, the truth, free speech and the law only matter when they support their point of view.

Of course, Freepers, as the creepy wing-nuts on the site are called, were not alone in being outraged by my column. I received quite a lot of mail, mainly from other gay people, questioning my argument that LA Fitness at Ansley Mall overreacted when it closed its sauna because of some occasional sex and reopened it with a new picture window overlooking the locker room. As an update, I might add that the window has effectively eliminated unseen sexual interactions inside the sauna and made room for another, more open form of sex between people on either side of the window: exhibitionism and voyeurism.

Most of my correspondents argued that the occasional discovery of sex in the sauna merited involvement by the police and the health department, reconstruction of the sauna and a report by one of the local TV stations. And, as usual, they concluded that because I called that overreacting, I must favor sex in public spaces. No matter that I said I find the behavior annoying. To be righteous, I must find it -- what? -- criminally actionable.

I wasn't surprised by the reaction. Sex troubles people more than anything. That's why Clinton was impeached for lying about a blowjob, while Bush was re-elected despite lying about a war that has killed thousands. Gay people's oppression is the result of their sex lives, so it's not surprising that they are hypersensitive to anything that might add to the picture of deviance. But it has become obvious that the very effort to make all deviance disappear and to assimilate -- to marry, for example -- increases prejudice.

The Freepers, of course, took outrage over my column to dizzy heights, fabricating arguments I did not make. This began with the man who posted it, "madpro98." He said that I dismissed "all sexual conventions, including common decency, as so much homophobia." Actually, I wrote no such thing. Then, of course, the Freepers concluded that the case of LA Fitness means every gay man is a sauna whore. For example, "Sender" writes: "Does anyone else think it's strange that gay men often have sex in a public toilet stall? ... Even if we had unisex public restrooms, somehow I can't imagine a man and a woman eyeing one another while washing their hands, then just jumping in the stall for a go."

The writer obviously has never been to Buckhead on a Saturday night. But what cracks me up is that the Freepers are so anxious to bash someone like me that they don't even realize when they are supporting a contrary argument. For example, "buffyt" quoted my statement that I don't like "stumbling upon any sex scene to which I have not been invited." Then she riffed obsessively about heterosexual couples at Mardi Gras "coupling all over the place" while the police ignore them. Exactly. Heterosexuals spoil the view with public sexual interactions every bit as much as homosexuals, arguably more, when they can find a place to do it. Nobody followed up on that post, of course.

I'm not going to quote the mind-boggling illogics and endless sophomoric fag-bashing (despite arguing they aren't homophobic). But I will thank "Jack Black," who wrote: "I think this was very well written. He is writing for the audience of radical homosexuals as one, so I have trouble twisting my thoughts enough to get to his point of view, but I still think the writing is good." Kiss me, dude!

Cliff Bostock holds a Ph.D. in depth psychology. Write him at cliff.bostock@ creativeloafing.com.

[edchambers]

a right-wing lunatic. just sounds too generic unlike my tag line..

[Petronski]

bookmark and ping for later discussion

Print it out and bring it to the Klan meeting tonight. ;O)

[Red6]

He’s self ingratiating.

Red6

[cyborg]

LOL

[Zhangliqun]

Further evidence that “Ph.D.” really stands for Pointy-headed Dweeb.

WRONG. B.S. stands for, well you guessed it.

Ph.D. is just a variation on that theme, meaning Piled Higher and Deeper...

[oldbrowser]

as is generally true of the lunatic far right, the truth, free speech and the law only matter when they support their point of view.

Is he calling us democrats ?

[William Tell]

munchtipq said: "I believe in social security."

What is your attitude about Social Security reform?

It would seem that some Social Security has become "welfare" in that benefits flow to people with no regard to whether they had earnings' deductions.

The consensus is that there will be a shortfall in the future. Should we hold benefits "constant" and raise the rate at which earnings are taxed? Should we leave the tax rate alone and reduce future benefits? Or some middle road?

When it comes to minding other people' business, there never seems to be a logical stopping point. Perhaps because it was never logical to start.

My own opinion is that Social Security has always been unjustified as a means of forcing people to have savings that they otherwise would have to create for themselves. If it was ever truly a savings program, there could never have been a time when there were insufficient funds.

[Madame Dufarge]

Just looked it up, and it appears to be a combo of whacko "Jungian" western psychology and Buddhist meditation.

With a little Joseph Campbell thrown in.

[OPS4]

Clint Eastwood woud like the PHD to visit him in California with Michael Moore in tow (Need a tow Truck.

Clint Eastwood: I'll Kill Michael Moore

'Dirty Harry' actor Clint Eastwood says if Michael Moore ever shows up at his door with a camera, he will kill the controversial movie director.

Eastwood stunned a New York filmmaking audience with his comments, the New York Daily News' Lloyd Grove reported today in his must-read column.

"Michael Moore and I actually have a lot in common - we both appreciate living in a country where there's free expression," Eastwood was quoted as telling the National Board of Review awards dinner in New York Tuesday night.

With a cold glare Eastwood took notice of Moore sitting in the audience and said bluntly and without a smile: "But, Michael, if you ever show up at my front door with a camera - I'll kill you."

Have a nice trip Mr. PHD.
Ops4 God BLess America!

[superskunk]

That's interesting. Thanks for posting it. I wonder if he realizes that God is the real muse. He IS inspiration. I think it's amazing to discover the REAL passion that connection to our God naturally generates. The thought probably never crossed his mind.

[TXnMA]

A Google search on "depth psychology PhD" yielded this:

MA/PhD Program in Depth Psychology

Pacifica Graduate Institute's Doctoral program in Depth Psychology has as its mission to re-animate the radical origins and intentions of depth psychology. The insights of the unconscious, the trasnsferential field, and the symptom, as well as the experience of dream and the imaginal, are extended within and beyond the consulting room and applied to an investigation of culture and history. Our work aims to recover what has been forgotten and marginalized by the heroic, individualistic ego, and to develop a capacity to host image and psyche. These endeavors allow us to apprehend the immanency of psyche in nature and to attend to the interdependent nature of being.

and this:

Mythological Studies Programs

There are very few PhD programs in mythology. The doctoral program I designed at the Pacifica Graduate Institute in Santa Barbara can be completed by attending three day retreats - once a month.

-----------------------

What a whackjob concept!!

[dfwright]

Giving madprof98 his props... Thanks for the ping, Meek

Now I guess I'll need to get an official "right-wing lunatic" patch to go with my "right-wing nutjob" button, and "conservative wingnut" sticker...

[Zhangliqun]

Depth psychology is mostly Jungian and archetypal, and deals with the idea that myths are universal and come from some constant aspect of human psychology that lies deep in the mind below the conscious level.

You explained it with infinitely more succinct-itude than its practitioners. (To know is to define...)

[JoJo Gunn]

Yet another adolescent control freak screams in infantile rage because it's Degeneracy isn't given complete approval.

There's nothing Enlightened about a Regressive sphincter chaser, ruled by infantile base emotion, craving attention and approbation, that waves it's soiled underpants in public.

[superskunk]

As a person who's read a couple doctoral dissertations (and struggled to understand them), It's hard for me to believe that any rational academic would lend the least bit of credence to this garbage. And academia wonders why we scoff at them.

[SCALEMAN]

"The insights of the unconscious, the transferential field, and the symptom, as well as the experience of dream and the imaginal, are extended within and beyond the consulting room and applied to an investigation of culture and history. Our work aims to recover what has been forgotten and marginalized by the heroic, individualistic ego, and to develop a capacity to host image and psyche. These endeavors allow us to apprehend the immanency of psyche in nature and to attend to the interdependent nature of being."

Anybody else notice that these people talk and write just to impress themselves. Anyone got any idea what the hell this means? Think they do? I think they make this crap up, spew it out, everyone else nods and agrees. I have an advanced degree in Microbiology and this crap wouldn't have gotten past first base in my educational experience.

[trisham]

Did this guy say that Jack Black is a homosexual who wrote to him as one? Is that Jack Black of the Shallow Hal movie that I just adore? I mean I think he is the cutest guy! Oh nooooooooo!

***************

Yikes. I hope not. He is cute. A little chubby, but there's always Atkins.

[firebrand]

ping for later

[OPS4]

I will wear my 82nd Screaming Eagles Patch next to my Christian basketball, Letter patch, and that will say enough.
Ops4 God Bless America!

[AirForceMom]

LMAO and cleaning my monitor. Thanks for the laugh!!