— Originally published in Honcho
magazine - November, 1996 —
SINS
by Lefty Boylan (aka Michael Kirwan)
Years ago the government decided to pull all
the liquor commercials off television because they were supposedly
enticing hordes of upright citizens to become falling-down drunks.
Later, beer advertisements were permitted to be aired as long as no
person was shown actually quaffing the sudsy beverage. The product
could be marketed with razzle-dazzle special effects and buxom
bikini-clad sirens, but not by portraying anybody imbibing. All the
soap opera characters who regularly headed for the bar (every house
had one) to fix a drink before confronting the next improbable plot
twist began puttering around with coffee cups (watch; eventually
this too will become some kind of sin, relegating all actors to
delivering laughable dialogue whilst standing stock-still) instead.
Now the only people who drink on television are hopeless alcoholics,
pathetic unworthies doomed to destruction if they fail to give up
the evil hooch. A character can no longer say "I need a drink" after
surviving some near-fatal mishap without everyone else on the set
shooting meaningful (and horror-struck) glances at each other; they
know when one of their own has a problem.
There was a time when newscasters, talk show hosts and regular
characters always had a lit cigarette at the ready. Slow curling
smoke, punctuating puffs and hastily ground-out butts indicated all
kinds of character temperament. But, as we all know, cigarettes can
cause hideous lung disease as well as yellowed fingers and the
dreaded "ashtray breath." So all the cigarette ads were pulled off
the air, the horror statistics rolled out, and the American airwaves
were made safe for democracy. These days, only the most unrepentant
of villains can be shown inhaling tobacco fumes; only monsters can
enjoy a cigarette on television.
Besides making people feel guilty, did these tactics really work at
deterring people from drinking or smoking? The inherent message in
this culture is that if you drink you'll be a drunk, if you smoke
you'll get cancer, and if you do any recreational drugs you'll soon
end up as a cadaverous junkie committing bloody crimes to get your
next fix. So if it's not mentioned, discussed, or depicted on
television, the audience (everyone) will just stop doing it. If it's
vilified often enough, they seem to suggest, any human activity can
be curtailed. The media obviously believes that we are all mindless
morons who glean our every concept of human behavior from televised
examples.
What does this have to do with our cock-craving lifestyle? Does
"Don't Ask, Don't Tell" ring a bell? They (the scumbags in charge of
everything) think that if they can suppress gay characterizations,
if they can prevent sex education that includes what we do with each
other, if they can silence our voices and erase our
images--*poof!*--no more faggots! Without positive representation,
they think that we'll all just forget the thrill of tasting a stiff
dick sliding into our mouths, that tight clutching sphincter
swallowing our pricks, and the sensation of getting porked by a
pulsating prong. They really believe that if they rob us of our
recently won public visibility, that we'll all just vanish like a
waft of cigarette smoke. Well, I say shout it out! Make films about
it, write stories about it, vote for it and keep homosexuality right
up there with the rest of this culture. Not because there's any
chance that we'll "forget" to be queer, no ... That's too stupid,
but do it just to fucking annoy our oppressors and wear down their
resources whenever and however possible. Ha ha ha!
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