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.
What in the heck are you rambling on about?
Thanks, Dave Tesla - freepers always know everything.
As you might have noticed, I'm a lazy techno dunce. But I got the spelling right, I'm surprised.
Sorry, I was away for the morning. Did the Kitties come for this guy yet?
Well now I'm famous. Thanks!
Do you need a picture painted for you? If you do not understand you need some help.
Just checked back myself. Don't know. People sure have had fun with him, though.
Who needs to point out the flaws in an argument when idiots do it themselves?
All you need to do is stand back and watch it self-destruct. The more people like him say, the deeper in they get. After all, "depth psychology". He's in pretty deep. So deep, it's pitch dark in there.
Just double checked - the perv who wrote the article wasn't the one who posted it, so not Zotting on this thread. Unless the dude shows up on the thread!
That would be "NO Zotting". Must proofread.
Have you have of the defense mechanism called projection. You are projecting trolley and if you have those kinds of thoughts in your dweeb mind a lobotomy would serve no purpose in correcting your mental disarray. Shove it you JAMF and sick Boy.
Get lost newbie.
Go back to DU or Fagcity.com or wherever it is that you and your kind congregate. And please leave our kids alone.
We're done here. I won't be responding to you again.
The only fag here would be you and I could care less how long you have been on the FR. You are nothing, but a punk who would not be popping off at the mouth in my presence(physical). You are living proof of what happens when monkey/rat feces morph into semi human form. I do believe you support the gay lifestyle, so please go get your dose of aids (swishboy) I knew you would cut and run just like you have done all your miserable life. When you look in the mirror each day you always see (Jack)= Jack's Sh-t. Oh by the way this site is for people of all ages and it is evident you do not have an iota of intelligence. I know you are just a smart ass punk with a big mouth. Word to you, becareful not to let your jaybird mouth overload your hummingbird ass. Nuff said. (NSNR) I had the last word had ha!!!!
Stop shaking hands with your best friend long enough to pick up a maddog magazine, because you're not paying attention, Einstein. If you knew your news, you'd know that it was Freepers who lit the spark that brought down CBS News and Dan Rather.
WE are the "bloggers" that Mommy (or, more accurately, MSMmy) warned you about. But you didn't listen, and now, you'll learn the hard way, too.
Here for your edification is one of the more "understandable" descriptions of depth psychology. Please note the interesting creation of new words like "stucknesses." One of my rules of thumb is, if you have to make up words to describe something, it is most likely Bull$shit. By the way, if you can make sense of this, please post it so we all can understand it.
Personal symptoms, conflicts, and stucknesses contain a mythic or transpersonal/archetypal core that when interpreted can reintroduce the client to the meaning of his struggles (e.g., the pain of leaving home can be reimagined as the ageless adventure of the wanderer setting out into the unknown). The danger in tending only to the transpersonal is inflation of the ego (e.g., pie-in-the-sky New Ageism); the danger in reductively focusing only on the personal is narcissistic devaluation of spiritual experiences.
Depends on the study subject. Depth psychology is not a real discipline. A PhD in hard sciences, engineering or a similar field still indicates a certain level of intelligence.
I am really out of touch as well... These poor, pitiful people seem to have such a burning need for being considered "normal". So much so that they go to the most inordinately weird lengths to gain notoriety. Who else but a gay person would think of sex in a sauna?
,,, tell me how much depth of psycology has been applied here.
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