CULTURE - Even the Philistines had one

Written by Alyn Adams
Wednesday, 08 February 2012 09:23

Beware when someone tries to excuse bigotry with “It’s traditional!” or tries to ban something with no better reason than “It’s not part of our culture.” It means they have no real arguments based on facts and evidence; they’re just repeating what their parents told them, and their parents before that.

Cultures, traditions, religions – all evolve. They must or become moribund and die. Some of my ancestors used to sacrifice animals – and quite probably humans at some point – at midwinter, to please the gods and make them bring back the sun. We don’t do that anymore, not just because it would cripple property values in Blairgowrie but because there’s absolutely no evidence to suggest that a lack of bloodletting will somehow stop the planet in its yearly journey around our star. Spring comes back, whether you kill something or not.

In the last few centuries, my immediate Irish, English and Afrikaner ancestors did agree on one thing – that the white “race” was more intelligent, moral and deserving than all the others. This created a traditional culture, at best condescendingly paternalistic, at worst savagely intolerant, of white supremacy. I managed to outgrow that culture. Probably because I read, rather than getting my worldview from scared old drunk fellow whities. (They’re the only ones who still bang on about the innate superiority of white people. Usually before vomiting and passing out.)

Which brings me to sex, something else that evolves and changes. Originally, it was a neat way to shuffle genes around and improve species through trial and error; then along came the primates with their big brains, and suddenly the mind-blowing “wow-this-is-almost-as-good-as-drugs-or-religion!” feelings it set off made sex a handy means of positive social interaction, without any necessary intention to breed. It’s hard to be hostile towards someone tickling your nipples. To pick just one example of many, Bonobo chimps – genetically, our close relatives – seem to use sex much like we’d use a firm handshake or a pat on the back. Age, gender and fertility don’t matter; sex is used as a casual bonding tool, including oral sex and mutual masturbation. Obviously, Mother Nature doesn’t intend our deliciously naughty bits to be used “purely for procreation”.

While I’m on that subject, the Catholic church, one of the big pushers of the “purely for procreation” myth, won’t allow Catholics any form of contraception except the “rhythm” method. That’s where you pretend that all your sexual relations with your spouse are in the hope of producing kids, but you use science and mathematics to make pretty sure that the female isn’t ovulating at the time you bonk. I’m not sure their God is fooled, so they might as well just slip on a condom and go hog wild at any time of the month.

Once you admit that sex for fun between consenting adults isn’t “harmful”, “sinful” or “unnatural”, campaigns against human rights for gay and lesbian humans just become pointless. Those that insist on persisting all espouse the same lies:

• “It’s not natural” – er, actually, yes it is. A lot more species occurring “naturally” on the planet indulge in same-sex loving than, for example, wear clothes or cook their food.
• “It’s not rape – all she needs is a real man to cure her!” Of course she does. There’s nothing like a brutal assault with a penis to make you long for a few more in your life. That’s why suburbanites always ask their home invaders to move in with them after they’ve been tortured for a couple of hours.
• “It’s against my religion” – well, then don’t do it! Who are you to force your religion on anyone else? We might as well still be burning heretics.
• “But we can pray away the gay!” Seriously? Tell you what, you pray for my foreskin to grow back. If you can get that right, I might trust you with transforming someone’s core sexual identity through superstitious voodoo. Or better yet – find a straight volunteer and pray him gay. Then we might believe such a conversion is possible.
• “But they’ll raise their kids to be gay!” Sure – after all, we know that when heterosexuals raise kids, they unfailingly grow up to be heterosexual, don’t they? Sheesh – this counts as logic? Only when compared to, “But if everyone turns gay, the human race would die out!” Yeah, right – seven billion and counting, but you reckon the only reason people persist with heterosexuality is that the alternative isn’t socially respectable. (And we haven’t even mentioned turkey basters and surrogate moms yet...)

Am I going too fast? Okay, in plain English: the last objection is stupid because a) everyone is not going to “turn gay”. In a world where everyone has the same human rights, fewer gay people feel the need to hide their identity, that’s all. And b) even if everyone did “turn gay” (and if you really think that’s possible, I’m happy to tell you that you have some deeply repressed feelings that you need to share with a qualified therapist), gay men and lesbians have been making babies without needing to sleep together for ages, so continuing the species is not going to be a problem. If anything, the most urgent problem on Earth right now is getting heterosexuals to stop breeding like flies.

But the more arguments you shoot down, the more certain you can be that they’ll circle back to that old standby: “It’s against the traditions of my culture”, which translates as “I want to behave exactly as my parents and their parents did, forever.” If that made any sense, we’d all still be living on a beach eating our shellfish raw. Or rather, we wouldn’t, because never letting your culture evolve is a sure-fire recipe for extinction.