THE SEMI-REGULAR DOGMATIC, 6
THE BEAST

BISHOP FORD
1992

How simple things must have been when the rule was perpetuation of the species and natural selection, when we were more Homines and less sapientes. Thought is glorious, and it is the defining act of my existence, but it makes everything so complicated. Our two natures make for a world ideally suited to neither. Animal finds civilization confusing. Consciousness finds wilderness brutal. No identity is forthcoming.

Sexual identity, for example, would seem to be second only to species identity in the animal kingdom. Humans, as an alien observer might have predicted, have not dealt wisely with this most important matter. Outdated myths, spurious “knowledge”, and utter lunacy abound. In spiritual terms, there is no such thing as a heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual. All persons are asexual. Sexual preference (not ‘orientation’) is in the mind, and the mind has no sex; thus it makes no sense to speak of preferring the opposite or same sex. Same as what? Imagine waking up in the body of the opposite sex. Has your mind been changed? No, and so you are still attracted to the sex(es) to which you were previously. Sexual preference is actually in terms of female, male, both, or neither.

It is important to remember that if you criticize a male for preferring males, or a female for preferring females, you are simultaneously criticizing females for preferring males, or males for preferring females. Let us not let the lesson of the fight against sexual discrimination be lost as soon as the fight starts to show progress. If females are to be truly accounted equal to males, they must be free to form relationships with females just as males do. And lest we engage in reverse sexual discrimination, if females are to be granted the privilege of freedom from sexual conventions, so must males.

To make a sexual stereotype of my own, the blame for the severity of anti-homosexual feeling (not ‘homophobia’, a more severe miscoinage than ‘anti-Semitism’) must fall primarily on males. At least in the culture of my emotional development, there are few greater transgressions for the male than sexual attraction to other males. It’s a part of machismo; male homosexuality shows a supposed lack of virility, and is supposed to reflect badly upon the entire sex. Even worse, though, than actually being a homosexual male, is being perceived as being a homosexual male. This alone, this fear of being stigmatized, not some evil, is responsible for the jokes and the violence. The greatest fag-basher is the testosterone king, who has the biggest cock and fucks the most babes. Of course, the near-opposite is true. Those who yell the loudest are the most insecure about their sexuality.

It is inconsistent, of course, that males don’t find it disgusting when females are sexually attracted to males. There is even a common erotic fascination with females who are attracted to other females. The source of this, I guess, is that it is easy for males to empathize with this attraction; it’s truly the same thing, just in a different body. And the lesbian fantasy has the added advantage of being free from males. “Oh no, a male appeared in my sexual fantasy! Am I gay?! No! No!! I don’t wan’t to be gay!”

This paranoia is the result of all the confusion about sexuality. It is so important to the typical male not to be a homosexual that males typically spend way too much time worrying about it. Females, on the other hand, seem to be pretty comfortable with it, as a whole. At least they have no problem with physical contact. And they can speak about other females as “beautiful” or even “sexy”. Males almost never admit to this. But of course, any male that has a notion of how it itself would like to look has a notion of a good-looking male. To actually voice this notion, though, is viewed with suspicion ― it sounds “mighty queer”. Worse is to look at another male “funny”. In order to avoid being perceived as homosexual, it’s necessary to use the default approach: don’t do anything at all which has the slightest possibility of even hinting at the most insignificant confusion. No deviation can be tolerated.

Those who by an accident of experience have developed untraditional sexual preferences need to concentrate on discouraging the notion that there is a moral content to sexuality. They need to accept, at the very least, that humans are mammals, and are teleologically heterosexual. Rather than attempt a biological justification for their sexual preference (which is bogus on the part of “heterosexuality” as well), rather than beseech science for an endorsement (which misplaces moral authority), they need to assert freedom of choice. Traditional sexuality is, like all tradition, indoctrinated, not innate.

Obviously, only females can bear children, and, practically speaking, must have mates to get pregnant. And if children are to be breast-fed, that requires females. This, though, is the sum total of necessary distinctions between the sexes. Fucking should be discussed frankly with respect to reproduction, but should be neither glorified nor condemned as an activity of pleasure.

Nudity, though I have been conditioned to find it embarrassing, has no association with immorality. Its association even with fucking is not natural, and would not exist at all if nudity were common. There would be nothing exciting about seeing an ass, any more than there is something exciting about seeing a kneecap now that this activity is commonplace. Nudity is not necessary for fucking; it has as close a relationship with bathing and shitting. Is this sexy?

It is no accident, and no secret, that nearly all taboos involve the organism side of humans, including taboo language ― ‘fuck’, ‘shit’ ‘piss’, ‘cunt’, ‘cock’, ‘ass’, ‘tits’. Apparently, our ancestors were not keen to the ludicrous sound of euphemisms. Is it more base to fuck than to engage in a gender-based transaction (‘sexual intercourse’)? Certainly the most disgusting term for this transaction is ‘making love’, which, once so used, made every other expression hopelessly coarse. It consigns ‘fucking’, which is devoid of tender sentiments, to the realm of beasts, where everything is instinct, survival, blind mechanistic business. It has been a major project of the human species to distance itself from the rest of the animals, from its own animal nature.

And here am I, struggling to reconcile my spiritual side with my physical side. I am a spirit, to be sure, a consciousness, not dependent ultimately on my body for existence, and yet trapped in the body, dependent on it for interaction with this world and its other consciousnesses (presumably). Thanks to civilization, I have neither the knowledge nor the freedom to graze for food. There is little clean water. I cannot tolerate the elements. My genes are hardly ideal; technology has made their preservation possible, but no more desirable, because I am an organism dependent on civilization. I make a poor animal. Alienation is so unbecoming.

Original version

© BISHOP FORD