Farewell, Adieu and So Long
As my farewell message to this forum, I will start with a true story from my own experience.
I left my small hometown when I was 17 and moved to San Francisco with two high school buddies. One of the first things that happened to me was getting hit on by gay men on the street. I didn't know what to make of it. Both of my parents would have been mortified to even hear the word homosexual spoken aloud. I also had many other bewildering experiences of a non-sexual nature during the time I lived in San Francisco. All of this left me with the inescapable conclusion that my parents hadn't prepared me for the real world. By trying to "protect" me from the truth, they had created a babe in the woods.
I see the same type of mentality in this forum. Teenagers are deemed too vulunerable to read about ordinary sex (as if they already didn't know a lot about it.) Curse words are considered a corrupting influence on them (although they have already heard most if not all of the words without turning depraved.) The sanctimonious rules of this forum are a stalking horse for conformity to certain values that should be questioned and not slavishly obeyed. If they were applied to the world at large, we would raise a generation of young people who wouldn't know how to function when they entered adult society. Is that a desirable goal?
I've got news for everyone: Dwight Eisenhower is no longer president, the sexual revolution happened 40 years ago, "Ozzie and Harriet" has been replaced on TV by "Will and Grace" and "Sex and the City." We can't go back to the 1950s because the world has been changed forever. Get over it.
Politics is not permitted to be discussed at this forum, but anyone who disagrees with political correctness is labeled sexist, racist or uncivilized. That's xenophobia and the worst kind of politics, practiced in every totalitarian society. To moderators who enforce the prudish rules I'll repeat the words of Don Pearce, a personal friend and the author of "Cool Hand Luke": Calling it your job doesn't make it right.
For the record I don't write smut or pornography. Some of my writing is a little risque, but it's tame by today's standards, and risque has been part of classic literature for hundreds of years. Read Molliere or "Tom Jones."
I teased certain members who asked for it by making stupid remarks and if they were offended by humorous teasing, they didn't belong in an online forum. President Harry Truman said if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. It's good advice.
I enjoyed my discussions with members who showed they could appreciate wit, rational argument and good writing and I wish them the best of luck. The rest should pull their heads out of this sandbox once in awhile and take a look at the real world for instructional purposes. It's not Armageddon, it's your home -- the only real home you have. You should learn to live in it rather than escaping to an online fantasy world where everything is made "nice."
