I'm Fed Up

I don’t try to make waves about things. And I don’t like discussing controversial topics in particular, but I’m about to try to hit home with something that bothers me that our culture as a whole thinks is perfectly normal.

This morning I woke to my radio alarm, as most mornings. As I slogged out of bed, I noted to myself the advertisement I heard, and I realized that I had accepted this as a normal advertisement to hear on any given day, and I heard the lies that it feeds all of us. So I wrote a parody of it to make a point. 

The copy below is NOT what I heard--but I want to be clear: I only changed the phrasing slightly to suit the material. About 2/3 of it is EXACTLY what I heard--just with a different message about how we view ourselves: 

Do you have a problem with your gayness? Is it something that you have said to yourself, time and again, that you really just need to get it under control? Well, we here at the GayAway Reformation Center have a plan that will fit in easily with your current lifestyle. No longer will you have to worry about how many people of the opposite sex you are attracted to—we will give you a number that is appropriate for you and help you stick to it! I have gone through the GayAway plan myself and now I am healthier because I am appropriately attracted to the right gender for me….and it was easy! No more looking for ways that I shouldn’t want this person or that person, but instead I read the material that my very fabulous—whoops, should I say that?—GayAway consultant gave me and just stuck to the plan. We know it’s hard to get away from the gay when you have so many stressors in your life, so we take the guesswork right out of the equation for you!

I imagine that any company like that would be firebombed by any one of about eighteen different civil rights groups. But I'm trying to make a point here. 

Now I want you to imagine that somewhere in the 1920s, this GayAway thing became a bit of a fad. People wanted nuclear families and natural proclivities were getting in the way of that. People wanted to look differently than they felt. 

They wanted to fit in. 

And an entire industry was built around the notion of going against your genetics and "winning" a battle that God never intended us to wage, an industry that bloomed even larger after World War II. "Straight is great!" becomes a motto, a rallying cry--not just for fundamentalists, but suddenly doctors get in on the act and come up with some statistics about how having a heterosexual relationship has incredible health benefits. The detractors don't gain ground because most people want to fit in with how everyone else looks. 

You're repulsed, right? I hope you are. 

But I wonder if you've ever stopped to consider the phrase "thin is in."