No, Virginia, You Can't Have Your Cake and Eat it Too
American adults need some reminders of what grown-ups used to know. Reminders about the nature of humans. Yes, the nature. The fundamental, hard-wired way we are. That nature is not going to change. It can’t be socially conditioned away. It’s part of the hardware.
When a person gets to a certain level of deviation from the norm, humans are always, always going to notice and comment on it. Adults of two generations ago understood this. It is only Gen X on downward that has this stupid fantasy that human society can be “perfected” such that freaks won’t be treated as freaks.
You can't just "do you" and expect the whole world to never remark on it.
Liberals, you can't ever have that world. You will never have it.
No. We're never going to have a world where men walking around in lipstick are seen as "just another way of being human." It's never going to be the case that they don't get looked at like they're fruitcakes.
There is never going to be a world in which tiny little women with testosterone beards and socks in their pants are not even noticed. Everyone is going to notice, and react with pity/disgust, and they're going to comment on it.
Three decades ago as a young, stupid gay guy, I thought the whole world was wrong for "harassing" me. I was being "bullied." It was UNFAIR.
Well, I was walking around with drawn on eyebrows and bleached hair to look like Madonna.
The problem was ME. I made myself look like a freak, and I got treated like a freak.
That's not the world being "phobic" or "bigoted". It's just people being human.
In the intervening 30 years, dressing and acting like a normal person, I haven't run into one instance of "homophobia."
It's time to go back to a grown-up understanding of society. You can't "live your best life" and fly your freak flag without commentary.
Never going to happen. Give up your childish dream of the 90s. It wasn't real then either.
The Dream of the 90s wasn’t real. It’s not going to be real. You will not be able to remake the world.
And the world does not need you to remake it that way, even if it were possible. A world in which there are zero standards for behavior, dress, public comportment—this is not a good world.
You know this, because we’re all living in it now. Having fun yet? I’m not. And neither are you, really, even if you still believe in some 2025 version of that goddamned hippie commie Coca Cola commercial.
Grow up.
Comb your hair. Wear jeans or khakis. Put on a dress. Wash your face. Take the metal out of your nose and mouth. Scrape off the drag queen makeup. Pull your pants up, black boys. Take the acrylic claws off your fingers, and the tarantulas off your eyelids, black girls.
It’s way past time.
Moments that will live in my head rent-free forever:
In another life, my income was low enough that I qualified for food stamps. I was waiting in line outside the state benefits office with a group of other beneficiaries who looked like they were either "from the hood" or WISHED they were from the hood. The guy in front of me had his pants sagging around his butt, and I watched in disbelief as he adjusted his pants. No, he wasn't pulling them up to keep them from falling down. He was adjusting them by pulling them even LOWER around his butt. Because he had apparently decided that they weren't low enough already. 😅
Guys, the stereotypes exist for a reason. Don't get mad at people who notice patterns. Get mad at the people who CREATE the patterns.
Why is authenticity such an elevated value? From a Christian perspective it can’t be. Jesus never said “be yourself”; He said “be like Me.”
Sometimes I wonder whether “authenticity” as the ultimate value comes from sociopaths who want to toss off the chains of social demands for civilized and moral behavior.
“Self-actualization” likewise sounds suspect to me. Maybe it’s OK insofar as it means detaching yourself from unhealthy external expectations, such as you’d have if you were married to or raised by a bully.
But otherwise it sounds solipsistic and uninspiring. My “authentic self” (aka lizard brain) wants to nap all day and eat sugary things.
Aim high, sistah.