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.