PI Editorial, Wed June 5
by Lindsay Perigo
Longtime anti-homosexual obsessive Reuben Chapple has ventured onto the SOLOHQ site to say, "Gay objectivists seem to be obssessed with sexual self-justification when it is something that shouldn't be a factor for any objectivist." He is responding with a well-worn diatribe, aired, among other places, on my own Politically Incorrect Show, to Part Three of Chris Sciabarra's "Objectivism & Homosexuality." Part Four is in the new Free Radical, & will be posted on SOLO in due course. It observes at one point, "One of the missions of Perigo's SOLO has been to bring this issue 'out of the closet so that it can be examined rationally - & then become, GENUINELY, the non-issue that it ought to be.'" You see, I agree with Reuben: the subject should NOT be a "factor" in the lives of Objectivists - but it HAS BEEN a factor because leading Objectivists have either said extremely stupid things about it or been afraid to say sensible things. It's time to put that right.
Don't expect any help from Reuben in that regard. First, he's not an Objectivist, & wouldn't pretend to be. Second, while he's sensible on many subjects, on this one he's long been unhinged.
"Male homosexuality," Reuben informs us for the umpteenth time, "could aptly be described as a pathological sexual addiction, one predicated upon youth, physical beauty, fleeting sexual encounters and always looking around for the next bit of fresh meat."
Well, tickle my testicles! Or, as another poster, the relentlessly heterosexual Matt Ballin so eloquently put it, "Yikes!" But wait - there's much, much more. Reuben's just getting warmed up:
"Is reducing sexual interaction to the expulsion of surplus bodily effluvia in a public lavatory amidst the reek of anonymous excrement without having even spoken to the other party or learned anything about them evidence of a psychologically and sexually healthy individual? ... In an objective sense, sexual addiction of the type described is surely evidence of deep pyschological disturbance for anyone, gay or straight, as are certain sexual practices. ... Why are activities like fisting, scats, mud sports and water sports are so widely practised in certain gay subgroups? ... whatever one's sexual preference, sexual addiction, fisting, coprophagia, coprophilia and micturation on one's partner have little to do with human intimacy and can only be symptomatic of massive self-disgust and self-hatred."
Now, in my experience, Reuben always does this - displays a familiarity & preoccupation with "gay" activities that I as a gay person have never engaged in & in some cases never heard of. I am not always looking around for the next bit of fresh meat (though flippancy impels me to say, chance would be a fine thing). I have never sought, or wanted, to expel my surplus bodily effluvia in a public toilet - & would never dream of doing so. The reek of excrement, anonymous or otherwise, does nothing for me at all. Quite the opposite. I have never engaged in fisting, scats or mud & water sport. I have absolutely no idea what coprophagia, coprophilia & micturation are, & am reasonably certain that I don't wish to find out. Perhaps I've just led a sheltered life, but somehow I doubt it. As far as I know, all the gay people of my acquaintance have no knowledge of or interest in these things either. In fact, as far as I can tell they're just like the straight people of my acquaintance, with the same diversity of romantic/sexual aspirations, except that they prefer their own gender to the opposite. No doubt there's a subculture that gets off on urine & faeces, just as there is, no doubt, in the straight world. I'm not an arbiter of whether such proclivities are "psychologically healthy" or not - in an area as demonstrably complex & little understood as sexuality I would be hesitant to pronounce such judgements - but methinks that Mr Chapple, in his fascination with them, doth perhaps protest too much. Ditto his fascination with sodomy.
The bottom line here, so to speak, must be that people should be left free to pursue their sexual & romantic interests as they please, leaving aside coercion & minors (the unwilling & the unwitting). Reuben professes agreement with that approach, but I wonder how long it would survive his homophobia were he in a position of authority. If we were back in the days when homosexual activity was illegal, would he be advocating its decriminalisation? Somehow I doubt it.
I wholeheartedly concur with Reuben, however, when he says, "I do ... have grave objections to gay activists manipulating public debate and trying to tell me that what is 'normal' for them on a personal level ought to be 'normal' for everyone when it clearly isn't." But Mr Chapple ought to have varied his normal (?) rant enough to acknowledge my being about the only gay public figure in New Zealand (the only other one I can think of offhand is Michael Coote) to speak out loudly, consistently & repeatedly - to speak out AT ALL - against the infestation of the "gay community" (ugh!) by politically correct fascists trying in effect to make homosexuality compulsory & heterosexuality illegal. These people ARE despicable & deserve all the odium one can heap upon them - not because they are gay, but because they are fascists. And because they now occupy the highest echelons of government & the public service. I have pointed out time & again that the persecuted have become the persecutors ... but you wouldn't know from Reuben's diatribe that I had said so even once. He is not interested in justice, just in ejaculating a bodily fluid of his own - his bile.
In setting SOLO up, I promised, among many other things, to confront Objectivism with its history on this matter. Thanks to Chris Matthew Sciabarra - & heedless of the likes of Reuben Chapple - I have made good on that promise. I'm proud of that.
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