Polimom still puts AC to bed at night.
We have snuggle time, stories, and a rehash of the day’s “good things” in the form of individual kisses under the pillow, to stave off nightmares… and I don’t start any of that until I close the closet doors.
Because as we all know, it’s in the closet that the monsters lurk (h/t TMV):
William Eskridge, a Yale law professor, has written that anti-gay prejudice has been marked historically by three characteristics. These are: (1) “hysterical demonization of gay people as dirty sexualized subhumans”; (2) “obsessional fears of gay people as conspiratorial and sexually predatory”; and (3) “narcissistic desires to reinforce stable heterosexual identity . . . by bashing gay people.” The primary historical traits of homophobia are thus hysteria, obsession, and narcissism.
Polimom can help AC, but night terrors in adults are another problem altogether. (I’d be happy to share our magic monster potion, but I don’t know how to market it… and it requires fairy dust anyway.)
Homophobia is, like all phobias, utterly irrational, but while one might reasonably have hoped that in this enlightened, educated age, people would have a bit of sense, our society is proving to be surprisingly susceptible.
We’re a superstitious bunch, and Polimom’s expecting to hear any day now that the world is really flat, and Darwin was an agent of Satan.
What’s really amazing is how much fits in the American closet these days: threats to Christianity (by Muslims, liberals, the judicial system); bloodthirsty terrorists on the front porch; scary brown people coming across the borders. Then there are the purely partisan demons, both Dem and Rep. If you’re on the left, the right’s after you, and if you’re on the right, you better watch out for the lefties. For some folks, there’s even Nancy Pelosi back there behind the mothballed sweaters and shoe boxes.
The agents of Amageddon are just behind the closet door, about to burst forth and slay us in our beds. Don’t close your eyes! Don’t turn out the lights! These nefarious creatures are lurking… waiting to jump out and grab us as we cringe under our comforters.
How are people sleeping at night?
Everybody’s going crazy. If we could see ourselves in a mirror, we’d probably laugh — but Polimom thinks we’re fresh out of looking-glasses. Broke them all, we did. (Has it been seven years yet?)
We are, it seems, not nearly as evolved (or grown-up) as we think.
My father was an ardent conservative, and a generous contributor to conservative causes. During the 80’s, my husband and I lived in a condo my parents had recently vacated, and mailers requesting his support continued to arrive at our address. Before the collapse of the Soviet Union, most of the appeals for dollars centered on the necessity to preserve our society and way of life from the godless/nuclear armed/expansionist Russian communists. When that threat had clearly abated, another began to emerge in the mailers: homosexuals. Gays had recently begun not only to emerge in large numbers from their closets, but to organize and demand an end to discrimation. One “monster” replaced another, because movements need enemies, and gays had conveniently put themselves forward.
I wish I’d saved all those mailers; they documented the rise of political homophobia.
Time is short: 1) Too many demons in the closet? I suspect that’s why more and more of us are bowling alone 2) for every special cause, a special group and for every discernable grouping…..a special cause, and thus more divisions; and why? It’s all about PROFIT. Get a group, create a victim, write a book, start a cause, identify the persecutor, foment hate and controversy and over reaction and, voila! You’re rich! 3) To what extent is the “homophobic” charge a “whine” over the fact that gays aren’t greeted everywhere in celebratory fashion, but rather are simply ignored……….like the rest of us by the rest of us. It’s not enough to be “accepted” now it’s a question of wanting to be totally “included”, (whatever that means), by everyone everywhere at all times. “Whine, I want attention!” The typical response, “fine, you’re gay, I don’t care, leave me alone” just won’t quite do for them. They refuse to leave the rest of us alone; it’s the new “ever in your face” confrontational style of the special group advocacy. (Another reason we not only bowl alone, but in private!). 4) “Homophobia is, like all phobias, utterly irrational, but while one might reasonably have hoped that in this enlightened, educated age, people would have a bit of sense, our society is proving to be surprisingly susceptible.” Uh……..cringe, please don’t use the term “our” society; it’s not my society; I belong to and fraternize with a totally different type of “society” which has nothing in common with your “our” society. Frankly I’m increasingly convinced that as more and more “reflective” people step back and take a hard look at American Society and what it’s morphed into, they will find themselves repulsed by it and disavowing any connection with much less support for it.
Uh, well, then there’s this:
http://www.cmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050602/REPOSITORY/506020352/1029/OPINION03
JulieD: I still have copies of those flyers suggesting that homosexuality was just the first step on the road to killing and probably eating babies and small children, especially girls. I collect such propaganda in a ‘scary things people say and do’ scrapbook alongside similar fear- and ignorance-mongering propaganda from anti-abortion forces (“they want to force you to abort your babies!”), white supremecists (“they want to force you to have mixed-race babies!”), etc.
I collect this stuff as a continual student of media and history; a favorite college term paper covered Propaganda in the Third Reich. I’m many years out of school, of course, but it never ceases to amaze how the right written (and broadcast) words can so easily sway the ignorant masses — who stay ignorant because of propaganda suggesting that “liberals want to teach your children to read so they learn to question all the values you hold dear!”
In response to the Concord article Mark Folse put up: Good God (no pun intended).
Homophobia is not new, nor is it a new rally subject of political activists. For decades, anything related to being gay was just against the law in many conservative states. There was no reason for public concern about it because it was against the law to be gay, so no reason for public debate about it. It was settled. Then as courts began to argue that in certain cases, the laws were an intrusion on certain rights, that is where room came in for a “threat” that could not have existed before.
The Right uses homophobia to get people voting just as much as the Left uses “backward Right people are voting voting!” as a threat.
Jack — I’ll certainly agree that both sides use the “fear” stick to beat people to the polls.
Glide — “The typical response, “fine, you’re gay, I don’t care, leave me alone” just won’t quite do for them. They refuse to leave the rest of us alone; it’s the new “ever in your face” confrontational style of the special group advocacy.”
As Jack pointed out, there were, actually, laws. Even if there hadn’t been, though, I really can’t agree that demonization is the correct (or even acceptable) response. And the fear-mongering spans more than homophobic-incitement.
I agree to a large degree with you, Glide, about the “our society”, though. I was being inclusive (obviously), but not only do I not care for many facets of it these days, there really isn’t much real “our” and “us” lately. It’s mostly “them”.
I found a perfect way to keep my monsters from getting out of my closet: I just filled the closet with junk, and anytime they try to get out they trip over all that stuff.
🙂
~EdT.