By M.Christian

YNOT – It’s easy to see why optimism has fallen out of favor. The other side in the culture war has its own network: billions of dollars provided by adamantine corporations, hundreds of thousands of cloudy-eyed citizen solders willing to die — and even worse, kill — at the whim of their leaders. And the so-called friends crouching alongside us in the trenches have proved to be fair-weather at best; cowardly at worst.

Just looking at the headlines is enough to make even the most delusional of the remaining hopeful hang their heads in leaden defeat: Republican candidate Michele Bachmann (and others) solemnly signs a document pledging allegiance to a Christian fanaticism that would mean institutionalized bigotry for gays and lesbians and criminal persecution for “pornographers” (in other words, all of us). If Bachmann’s religious zealotry weren’t bad enough, there are others overtly attempting to sway the public perception that pernicious evil masquerading as “family values” somehow is mainstream.

But no matter the wool they wear, all of them are wolves: either frozen-hearted opportunists looking for the quickest way to gain bucks or power. More abhorrent, perhaps: Some of them actually believe the feces spilling from their mouths. The latter is more shiver-inducing.

Doubt if you will, but I’m here to tell you it’s okay to come out from behind the walls of our bitterness and cynicism; that it’s not delusional to look down the tunnel from here and see a future encompassing a bright, shiny, happy place instead of the smoking pile of rubble we’ve come to expect.

That’s not to say we shouldn’t stay alert and ready on the edges of our ethical fortifications. As the Irish political philosopher and statesman Edmund Burke once said, “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” So while we — the pornographers, the perverts, the wild ones, the None Of The Above — can have a bit of (Dare I say it?) optimism, it will come because we kept our eyes wide open and planned our battles with smarts as well as passion.

But we can be optimistic. It sounds like a small, even silly thing, but as evidence of hope I present this tidbit: the State of Louisiana is close to decimalizing oral and anal sex.

Okay, you can giggle, guffaw, and even outright laugh, but this is not a joking matter. For more than 200 years, poking someone in the ass — even if they wanted it — or sucking on a penis could and did land a lot of people in legal hot water … and sometimes jail. Now, after far too long, State Sen. Jean Paul J. Morrell has squired through the legislature a measure reclassifying what is legally known as sodomy from a felony to a misdemeanor.

Alas, the picture is not completely rosy: Beginning in August, participating in anything but good-old-fashioned vaginal sex can get you six months in jail and/or a $500 fine, and two convictions will mark the hapless petty criminal a sex offender.

Bad? Yes. But don’t let cynicism creep back in. The law still isn’t good, but what this and other recent developments — the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and a successful referendum to legalize same-sex marriage in New York, for instance — means something very, very important.
The Political Right may not like it, but public opinion polls recently have been pointing in one direction: People’s attitudes about sexuality are changing for the better. Smarter people than I have pointed out that as fundamentalist hysterics increase, their venom increasingly backfires, doing more harm than good. Rank-and-file Americans realize the arch-conservative well of hungry hatred has no bottom.

Things are rough, there’s no denying that. But giving up based on the assumption the loudest, most hateful voices will win is neither accurate or wise. They will only win if we let them.

M.Christian is a YNOT.com contributing editor and an author of literary erotica that blends the spectrum of sexual preferences and desires with horror and science fiction. Want to get in touch? Email him.