Perverted Censorship

The dictionary defines 'perverse' as 'being turned away from what is right and good.' I am a flag waving American vet, but in my country it has often been acceptable to be perverse. Carnage and sex come to mind.

When I was nine, my mom and dad used to press a quarter into my hand and send me off to Saturday matinee. I saw wonderful westerns, mysteries, war stories, sci-fi serials, religious epics and cartoons. I learned about weapons, fighting, dying, suffering, sacrificing and that evil men or an angry God would kill hundreds on a whim.

As the years passed, blood, gore and horror movies became the rage for teenage viewing. "The Thing" cured me from watching horror movies. I had months of nightmares of the severed hand moving under the dim light or the dead dog falling out of the bin.

Luckily I had been exposed to a lot of non-filtered ideas. My father was career military. When I was fifteen, I had spent more time in foreign countries than in the United States. My years in Germany, France and Okinawa had left my young mind with a well-informed, healthy interest in sex. The first girl I ever asked for a date, matter-of-factly told me she had to work that night. She worked in a souvenir shop in Naha, Okinawa, during the day. She was fourteen and a hooker some nights. She and her mom did what they had to do to survive. In fact they did rather well, on their standard, and accepted what they did. I liked them both, sought to understand and did not judge them.

From my would-be date, uncensored shows, watching midwifes work and being around people who accepted sex as openly as eating and going to the bathroom, I learned my own definitions of perversion. I returned to the U.S. totally out of sync with its society. "Naughty magazines" weren't naughty. They were crude but the women were untouchable, titillating, beauties and the sex acts were familiar to the world. I learned to stay quiet when friends would bring out their well hidden, secrets from under their mattresses and from behind boxes in the garage.

At first I wasn't sure if my buddies weren't just playing a macho game. Sometimes even smart people do things that are ignorant and bigoted. Surely, they knew women were not inferior cum sluts to be dominated and taken. Surely, they knew that women were not here just to be subservient to men. Surely, they knew and understood the "third sex" concepts accepted around the world for centuries. Surely, they knew different cultures and races were wonderful, equal and exciting. Surely, they knew the arrogant twists and turns that men have made in their religions. Surely, they knew enough anatomy to know that the hymen is a "Maybe" external structure on a girl. Surely, they knew that nymphomania was a horrible, torture for a woman and not something any man would want to run into. Surely, they knew that a six-inch dick was what they were meant to have. Surely, they wanted to soar into the world of beauty, sex, diversity and awe.

Until well after college, most testosterone driven conversations bored me. I relished in the soft warm different feel and smell of a female's skin. Seeing pleasure in my woman's eyes is the greatest feeling in the world. If it took toys, fingers, tongue or dick anywhere on her body to put a smile on her face, so be it. I could not as a child, and cannot now, understand where all the guilt about sex came from. I could not understand ideas, like: Girls had to be tricked; men were after only one thing; "That's dirty;" rape; "I never pay for sex" or "It's a sin."

In my mind, sex is God's greatest gift to mankind. It is a toy, a communication device, a medicine, a way to relax, a way to make babies and the most fun we can have. Men and women both love it, equally. It can be bought and sold like maid work. It can be just for fun or it can be almost a religious experience. Mostly it is just beautiful.

Viet Nam forced me to see carnage for real, not just as the fantasy and shock of "Texas Chain Saw Massacre." The sights, sounds, pain and smells of real human butchery is far different. Once, I came across a beautiful young girl, dying, almost nude with much of her brain showing. She reached for me, just needing to feel the touch of another human. I held her until she died. I didn't know her religion, political bent or sexual preferences. I thought again, if back in the US, anyone could watch the horror of this beauty dying on the news, but those same people could not see her happy, complete as a woman, making love, except on tapes condemningly labeled "Porno" and "For Adults Only." Are we saying, children can see the worst humans have to offer but cannot see the best?

All people like to watch people. Watching sexy, attractive people is more fun than watching sloppy, ugly people. Seeing smiles is better than seeing frowns. For me seeing naked women is infinitely better than seeing a bloody, dismembered body.

Don't make the mistake of labeling me a bleeding heart liberal. You couldn't be more wrong. Just as there are rogue elephants and mad dogs there are people in both categories. The only way we currently know how to protect ourselves and our society from those deviants, is to eliminate them. I would go so far as to say sometimes people follow rogue beliefs that cannot be rectified. If one group claims the right to kill all blue-eyed people on sight, I disagree that they have that right, even if they have a nation or a religion backing their thoughts.

My friends might ask, "Who are you to hold such judgmental opinions about another? Can't another culture decide to rid itself of blue eyed people, mistreat its population, demand religious agreement and kill who it wants?"

My answer is easy, I am a guy who likes sex and people, especially women, and who doesn't like horror movies or seeing bodies hurt and bleeding. So it is not advisable to hurt my wife or kids, to abuse children or rape women in front of me. Even if your country, your religion or your on personal sick belief says it is all right.

Now ask me two other questions.

"Is it alright to call war, bigotry and carnage perversion?"

My answer would be, "Yes, that is perversion. It is not what is right and good."

"Is it alright to enjoy looking at naked people, enjoy sex, enjoy watching people have sex, decide for yourself what is right sexually for you and choose not to judge the sexual decisions others make?"

Again my answer would be, "Yes." But I would add, "That is the way it is supposed to be, that is not perversion."

I do wish the news, my country and the religions of my country understood that.