How generous you are, most revered Skipper! It is I who am at a loss...lost in my own rhetoric. Left to my own devices, and by that I mean this infernal device upon which I bang these words, I edit while banging and inadvertently edit out sense and salience.
Moreover, some mysteries are insoluble (paging Judge Crater), but may not need to be solved. Anything that strays from the Kinsey 0 path is deemed "mysterious" and requires not only solution, but possibly correction. Just a thought...prayer to follow.
Many thanks, Skipper and Professor Wuest for a most enlightening examination of a subject about which I have many strong feelings, thoughts and prayers. As one who'd be queer in every sense if he weren't queer in the same-sexer sense, and without advocating assimililationism, I believe that if I have any purpose in life it is to neutralize binarism, sexual apartheid and conservative attempts to determine the "cause" of human sexual response.
The concept of gay or straight "people" is as anthropologically valid as Piltdown man, unless one chooses to claim membership among the alphabetized community, which is absolutely valid. You are what you think you are; read Pirandello. However, even after the invocation of all 26 Romans, moving on to hieroglyphics and cuneiform, we still will not be able to categorize human sexual activity. With the exception of Kinsey 0s: exclusively heterosexual or Kinsey 6s exclusively homosexual, sexual activity is highly mutable. Indeed for some choice is possible, and thus more unknowable and unpredictable than the universe.
Until sexual taboos that restrict consensual sexual expression, opportunists of varying stripe motives will exploit prejudice for fun and profit. In the final analysis, there is only sex in its glorious and infinite variety.
Seems like your secretary's loss to me! An eloquent description of a mystery that need not -- nor as you say, can be -- quantified. Thanks for your thoughts, Vince, and a fabulous final analysis
May the fair winds of recollection fill the sails of the good ship Skipped History on its voyage of course correction.
How generous you are, most revered Skipper! It is I who am at a loss...lost in my own rhetoric. Left to my own devices, and by that I mean this infernal device upon which I bang these words, I edit while banging and inadvertently edit out sense and salience.
Moreover, some mysteries are insoluble (paging Judge Crater), but may not need to be solved. Anything that strays from the Kinsey 0 path is deemed "mysterious" and requires not only solution, but possibly correction. Just a thought...prayer to follow.
A welcome thought, and I’ll await the prayer!
Many thanks, Skipper and Professor Wuest for a most enlightening examination of a subject about which I have many strong feelings, thoughts and prayers. As one who'd be queer in every sense if he weren't queer in the same-sexer sense, and without advocating assimililationism, I believe that if I have any purpose in life it is to neutralize binarism, sexual apartheid and conservative attempts to determine the "cause" of human sexual response.
The concept of gay or straight "people" is as anthropologically valid as Piltdown man, unless one chooses to claim membership among the alphabetized community, which is absolutely valid. You are what you think you are; read Pirandello. However, even after the invocation of all 26 Romans, moving on to hieroglyphics and cuneiform, we still will not be able to categorize human sexual activity. With the exception of Kinsey 0s: exclusively heterosexual or Kinsey 6s exclusively homosexual, sexual activity is highly mutable. Indeed for some choice is possible, and thus more unknowable and unpredictable than the universe.
Until sexual taboos that restrict consensual sexual expression, opportunists of varying stripe motives will exploit prejudice for fun and profit. In the final analysis, there is only sex in its glorious and infinite variety.
CORRECTION: ...varying stripes AND motives...
CORRECTION: Until sexual taboos that restrict consensual expression ARE ABANDONED, etc...I apologize. My secretary is on sick leave
Seems like your secretary's loss to me! An eloquent description of a mystery that need not -- nor as you say, can be -- quantified. Thanks for your thoughts, Vince, and a fabulous final analysis