Date: Wed, 25 Oct 1995 00:17:17 -0400 From: Mickster@aol.com Hallelujah! THERE IS ANOTHER WAY OUT! Shout the good news in the girl's gymnasium! Being a tomboy is not only the result of childhood sexual trauma, it's the first step in a life emotional emptiness. Put the bats and balls down, girls, and come to Jesus. News! News! The clouds have parted and the light of the Lord has illuminated our precarious path. Lesbian or gay attraction is emotional dependency, not true love. Oprah, Rolanda, Phil and Ricki are out of work. Heterosexuals can now stop worrying that "codependency," "obsessive/compulsive behavior" and "bad judgment" refer to them. Praise God, it's a Lesbian thing! THERE IS ANOTHER WAY OUT! There's a new 12-Step program for sexually confused boys! 1. We admitted we were powerless over drag - that our lives had become GLAMOROUS! 2. Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to Dockers and ESPN. 3. Made a decision to turn our heels and our gowns over to the care of religious bigots in every campus ministry with an advertising budget. 4. Made a searching and fearless inventory of other people's sexual conduct. 5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to the cute guy at the Clinique counter that we were tired of being called "fag." 6. Were entirely ready to have God remove our impeccably good taste and our collection of Streisand albums. 7. Humbly asked him to remove our gym memberships. 8. Made a list of all the women we hadn't dated and became willing to ruin one's life in a marriage based on social acceptance rather than emotional and physical attraction. 9. Made direct proposals to such women whenever possible except when to do so might interrupt Monday Night Football. 10. Continued to take other people's inventories and when they faced ostracism, rubbed salt in their wounds by telling them Jesus loves them IN SPITE OF who they are. 11. Sought through penile/vaginal contact to enhonace our approval rating with the campus ministries as they understood us, praying only for the knowledge of their will for us and the intestinal fortitude to go through with it. 12. Having finally engaged in sexual activity that the campus ministries approve of, we tried to carry this balderdash to impressionable young men everywhere who might confuse culturally assigned sex roles with sexual orientation. I tried the program for a week. Every time I had a sexual impulse I just watched the 700 Club. Amazing results! Totally numb from the waist down. No, I can hardly even think about sex anymore, but that's okay. I know that Steven and the coalition of campus ministries are thinking about it with alarming frequency. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Steven. We believe. We believe every word. We even believe you when you say, "The goal...of the sponsoring groups is not to give opinions..." We believe you! We will never think that calling sexual repression a "WAY OUT" is an opinion of the most negative sort, because we believe you. Personally, I never made what I could call a choice about my sexuality. Well, with the exception of that choice I made to stop being miserable. Oh, and I decide that it was okay that I know nothing about flower arranging, fashion designers and opera. I decided it was okay that I like baseball. The fact that my blood pressure rises when Jay Buhner tugs his sleeve up over his biceps is just a bonus that the straight guys I go to games with are missing out on. I decided that my own assumptions about same-sex desire, inherited from well-meaning, ignorant people were just wrong. Nothing about my sexuality prohibits me from having barbecues, changing my own oil, enjoying both ballet and boxing, mosh pits and modern art. I decided to stop believing that there was an inherent sexual caste system in which married-with-kids was the privileged class. When I decided to stop believing the lie that sexual orientation made me fundamentally flawed, I became free to be a better friend, brother, uncle, son and man. I guess I'm a little out of step with the program. John Paulk wants me to know that if I'll just come to Jesus, people who would otherwise call me "sissy, queer, fag" will reward me with "man, husband, and Christian" instead. I'm having a hard time figuring out why I'd want to earn the acceptance of people who like to control other people's personas through derision and mob intimidation. But if all those campus ministries think I should, I guess I'd better come around. Sign me up, Stevie! Mick Shanahan SOUTHERN METHODIST UNIVERSITY 1995 First Year Graduate Student - English SMU Alumnus 1983 (BFA Journalism)