Well, it's my birthday today. 43 years old and not one iota of maturity. I'm living the dream, baby!
I know my parents read this blog. So Mom and Dad -- Hi! I love you! Can't wait to see you next week!
And I would recommend that you two not read the rest of this blog entry. It's nothing scandalous. It just might be kinda ... icky.
OK, I want to address the comments of Michael Schwartz, chief of staff to Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn and conservative activist. He recently spoke at the "Value Voters Conference," at a breakout session called "The New Masculinity," seeking to define "masculinism" for the current era.
Schwartz went off on a discourse about the evils of pornography, implying that it turns you gay. He said: "All pornography is homosexual pornography, because all pornography turns your sexual drive inwards."
Now, one of the things I'm happy about as I turn 43 is that I'm still in touch with a lot of guys who have been my friends since childhood. I still get together regularly with a bunch of them for a poker game. If any of them are secretly gay, they've done an excellent job of concealing it from me -- not to mention their wives and children.
I can personally testify that if looking at porn at an impressionable age turned you gay, me and these other guys would probably form the kickline at a drag show by now.
Yeah, we looked at porn when we were kids. This was in the days before the Internet, so it usually took the form of a copy of Penthouse or Hustler procured by an older brother or shoplifted from a local convenience store.
We weren't perverted sex maniacs. We were just regular boys hitting puberty. Come to think of it, I guess that would make us perverted sex maniacs.
If I was to play armchair psychologist, I'd have to say I suspect a major element of projection in Schwartz's comments. I mean, come on! Is it me, or is there something suspiciously defensive in the very concept of a conference to define your "masculinism?"
And as for the premise that viewing straight porn awakens homosexual feelings in pubescent boys -- what the hell line of reasoning is he following?
"Well clearly, any young man who watches footage of a man and a woman having sex is going to think to himself, 'Hmmmm, this would be far more arousing if it was two men,' which in turn leads to ... uh ... why are you all staring at me like that?"
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