Terry and I were drinking wine, socially distanced by telephone. I was consuming a sassy Old Vine Zinfandel. Terry was enjoying a feisty Cab that mellowed with each dainty sip. Our wine club met remotely last month and both members enjoyed our time together. We have two rules. We only drink wine we like, and we don’t buy anything that costs more than ten bucks.
At some point in our conversation, Terry mentioned being upset about actors not allowed to play roles involving genders they don’t identify as. Terry has no idea what differentiates pansexual from bisexual. And I doubt he could name more than six of the more than 50 different genders now recognized by media sources. I know I can’t. I don’t understand why this bothers him. But there’s a lot of that going around.
A famous person named Harry Styles recently posed in a Gucci gown for a magazine spread. People went crazy. Ben Shapiro and Candace Owens, who get paid to find doom in anything a liberal leaning person does, were quick to condemn the photos and blame the demise of America on such things. I don’t fault either of those people; they are paid big bucks to do this and arouse the conservative populace. I’m guessing they sleep fine at night making money in such an unseemly manner.
I’m more disappointed at regular people wringing their hands over such antics. Mr. Styles regularly wears Gucci and probably got paid handsomely for his photo shoot. Not as much as Shapiro and Owens, but enough to justify wearing a dress for a bit in a closed studio.
Normal folks everywhere were outraged even though many cultures don’t require men to wear pants. Even our prized white English culture didn’t care too much about pants until we started riding horses and getting a little chafed on our inner thighs. Without getting too deep into this, I’d like to point out that neither Gandhi or Jesus ever wore pants.
While this was happening, a small group of concerned citizens in the northwest asked a female neighbor to quit “dressing like a man.” This timed perfectly with an El Paso high school suspending a male student for painting his fingernails, and a guy in Little Rock getting a letter from “the Real Santa” reminding him Santa is white and he should remove the black Santa from his Christmas display.
All this came during the week of the 40th anniversary of John Lennon’s death. For you confused young folks, Lennon was partly responsible for the massive overreaction to longish hair in the 60s. Male students got suspended for hair touching one’s ears and any adult could demand a haircut to prevent… can’t remember what disaster long hair was enabling. Sounds really silly to talk about now. Things driving outrage these days will be just as silly in three decades.
We constantly harp about our own freedoms yet demand others forfeit theirs for the silliest of reasons. Freedom requires the respect and defense of others’ freedom just like ours. Maybe the TV folks doing those sappy commercials about personal responsibility are right.
Makes me want to start drinking.
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