Posted on 01/14/2005 7:57:27 AM PST by 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.
Once again lefty nutcases come to the defense of the most anti-homosexual, Fundamentalist segment of the population.
These people are sending mixed messages. Is it Fundamentalism they object to or Fundamentalism among people with insufficient melanin?
look who made the news
The only good thing about his reaction is that it is forcing him to form cohesive sentences while attempting to argue his position -- something that requires a lot of effort from his stumbling, irrational point of view. Just keep reading Freeper, Cliff, and you will see the light.
P.S. Cliff? If people had bothered to listen to the John Birch Society back in the forties, we could have avoided a Cold War and McCarthyism because the John Birchers, were, of course, 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.
Me neither. He does seem obsessed with us, though.
What a fag.
Mr Bostock forgets that Clinton lied under oath in a SEXUAL HARASSMENT trial where he was accused of assaulting a state worker under his authority. Of course that doesn't matter because he has his strawman against Bush.
Please prove that Bush lied. We'll wait patiently.
What say you, Buckhead?
Now that you're a famous on-line celebrity, and all, are you seeing a lot more action than you're letting on?
Pray for W and Our Troops
The Deep South version of Miss Morford.
I believe it involves gerbils, fists, and other assorted things where the sun doesn't shine. The psychology part is when the cranium is inserted in said portion of the anatomy.
If anything, this is very unfair and obviously the writer is a liar. If he stuck around long enough, he would know the Mods (and many other Freepers) immediately pounce on tinfoil hat/CRF conspiracy "Eisenhower was a communist", or racist posts here on FR. They are often, right away, banned into oblivion. That is one things the mods and so many Freepers will not accept nor tolerate, especially the racist crap (liberal sites bashing Condoleeze Rice, for example, with racism from the left are much more blatant, IMHO).
So, as I have said, the writer is a liar. This is someone who wrote an article making up his mind before he even wrote it.
nice ink gang
He sounds really peeved. Probably somebody swiped his Crisco at the sauna.
This has GOT to be Mark Morford's(sp) boyfriend.
Why is it that all flames seem to have a writing style bordering on the hysterical.
This guy sounds like an idiot
Have to agree with him there-- it's definitely a blast to read. Sometimes extreme, sometimes not...
Criminy! That professor Clifford must be a member of the Council of Trilateral Foreign Relationional Commission and High Tea Club or sumpin! His Mah ought to warsh his mouth out with soap!
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