SINS

by Michael Kirwan (aka Lefty Boylan) — November, 1996

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!