July 4 And Your Sexual Freedom

This weekend we celebrate the birthday of our country. Many will do this by marching in a parade, getting drunk, or displaying the Stars & Stripes. But there are other ways to celebrate the sacrifices that have made America the world’s most radical experiment in free speech and free thought.

It’s not the fact that you were born here that makes America great. It’s the principles that America stands for, struggles with, and protects. So this week you’ll be honoring those who have fought and died for America when you:

* Use birth control
* Download porn
* Watch the Sopranos or South Park
* Go to a raunchy comedy club or listen to a raunchy CD
* Have non-intercourse sex
* Get a lapdance at a neighborhood club
* Have sex with someone of a different race
* Have sex with someone of the same gender

Every single one of these acts took a court decision to affirm its legality—many from the Supreme Court. Yes, the same historic court that ended racially segregated public schools was needed to decide that Americans could legally purchase contraceptives, and that whites and blacks could have sex together.

When you live your normal life this week—using condoms, watching grownup TV, shopping in private on the internet, enjoying oral sex, ignoring ads for massage parlors in your local newspaper—you’ll be honoring the lives and hard work of thousands of plaintiffs, lawyers, judges, clerks, and volunteers.

These men and women may not have died in the line of duty, but they are on the front lines, serving our country. We have no medals for Bill Baird, Phil Harvey, Mildred Loving, Sherri Williams, or other heroes who have risked their lives, freedom, money, and sanity to protect our sexual expression. They fought not against a foreign enemy, but against tremendous pressure right here at home—from tyrannical majorities, powerful minorities, vindictive government agents.

These same elements threaten our basic American rights today.

Like other freedoms, sexual freedom isn’t free. Today, on our country’s birthday, let’s remember those mostly-anonymous people who struggled and suffered to make America safer for sexual expression and the commercial and intellectual activities needed to support it.

Let’s also remember the human beings languishing in American jails simply for creating sexually explicit films that millions of grownups have bought to use in their own homes. Our government has spent our money to stop these people from expressing themselves. If these people aren’t political prisoners, who are?

Some will say that our founders didn’t suffer at Valley Forge or die at Lexington & Concord so that your niece can buy rubbers, or a guy down the street can go see a stripper, or you can hear Jon Stewart say “dickhead.”

I say that that’s exactly why people died to create America—a special country in which people have the extraordinary right to do, say, and think things of which their neighbors—and government—disapprove.

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Governor Sanford, Senator Ensign—Their Hypocrisy, Or Ours?

Two more “family values” politicians recently bit the dust, as Nevada Senator John Ensign and South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford both admitted to extramarital affairs. Prior to that, both men were known as vociferous critics of “immoral,” commercial, and non-traditional sexual expression. Each one had, for example, used the power of the government to punish President Clinton for cheating on his wife.

Of course, the media jackals immediately descended on the two, as did their self-righteous former allies. America loves a sex scandal, and it delights in seeing the mighty fall. Add hypocrisy and you have a made-for-TV jackpot. The Letterman-Conan-Fallon crowd are already making the standard cheap jokes. It takes no skill whatsoever to make fun of somebody caught with his pants down while he’s standing on the Bible.

As a credentialed sex expert I was asked for a juicy quote by TV, radio, and the press. Their angles were predictable. C’mon, we’ve covered this turf for years: Jimmy Swaggart, Ted Haggard, David Vitter, Elliot Spitzer, Larry Craig, Oral Roberts’ wife. Bill Clinton, for that matter.

I didn’t bother with “power as an aphrodisiac” or “repression hides kinky impulses.” It’s all been said.

But when the San Jose Mercury-News asked “why politicians are so prone to this stuff,” my answer surprised them. “It isn’t clear to me that politicians act out sexually any more than the rest of the population,” I said.

With the enormous demand for pornography and prostitutes, “sex addiction” treatment and faith-based fidelity classes, skyrocketing sales of sex toys (in stores, home parties, and on the internet), new policies trying to stop people from sleeping with their co-workers, and millions of sexual ads on Craigslist, Ashley Madison, and elsewhere, it seems clear that Americans are as randy as ever.

We just won’t admit it.

Instead, we become captivated with politicians getting laid, getting spanked, getting queer, or paying for it.

It’s the perfect opportunity to talk about “them.” You know, “them” (sexually dirty) as opposed to “us” (sexually clean). It’s a distinction that some people desperately need to assert over and over. Because, psychodynamically, they aren’t really sure.

Politicians are merely doing what everyone else is. Driven by sexual needs, feelings, or impulses, regular people across America gamble with their marriages, their jobs, and their health every day. It’s just that no one outside their small circle cares. Of course, ordinary people don’t have the power to regulate others’ sex lives. And they don’t have a big platform from which to talk about the bad people and bad behavior they’re trying to regulate.

Americans love when politicians get in sexual difficulty because it allows us to salute the norms we claim to live by—and don’t. It allows us to solemnly talk about how people should live, even though we don’t. It allows us to piously talk about what people shouldn’t feel, even though we do. We get to have our psychic cake and eat it too: we get to validate the sexual norms we want to pretend we follow, while continuing to defy them. As a bonus, we vicariously enjoy others violating those norms.

So Ensign and Sanford will be lynched by an ecstatic public mob. In a satisfyingly familiar ritual, a religious sacrifice will be made to appease the gods, as careers are ended and dreams are dashed. Still-trusted politicians will intone that since the public won’t trust people who lie about sex, those caught must go. And the public will eagerly agree, saying that such people shouldn’t be representing us in government.

Really. Are you also going to fire your eye doctor, supermarket checker, airline pilot, and the guy who cleans your street on Tuesdays? Because they’re doing it, too. Whatever you’re doing, they’re doing, just like Ensign and Sanford.

Ensign and Sanford are hypocrites, for sure. They spent years punishing and even jailing people for victimless sexual expression very much like what they were doing. But society is hypocritical, too. We set impossible, rigid standards for politicians, claiming we want to be represented by people with no sexual feelings or past. When they turn out to be like us—struggling to reconcile their sexuality and their values—we say they’re unlike us and beneath us.

We’re lying to ourselves.

And so we’re doing to Ensign and Sanford (as we’ve done to others, and will do again) what they’ve done to the public. We continue to demand politicians who say sex is bad. We get them. And when they accidentally reveal that they’re part of that bad sexuality, we disown them.

We’re now punishing Ensign and Sanford for not being who we pretend we are.

No one has clean hands in this affair.

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HIV Hypocrisy: Activists Join Government to Denounce Porn

Fact: A part-time porn actress taking her industry-mandated HIV test came up positive last week.
Fact: She and the four actors who recently worked with her have been quarantined by the industry.
Fact: She is the 1st female performer to test HIV positive since 2004. Five others were detected in an outbreak five years ago. (Sixteen men, mostly actors who have sex with other men, have tested positive during that time.)
Fact: During that same time, non-porn actresses in America acquired HIV at the rate of 35 women per day.

So-called morality groups will of course use this single new HIV infection to call for the end of porn in America. But there’s a more insidious movement afoot—from the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which has called a rally for June 15 in West Hollywood. They are demanding legislation that would require the use of condoms by actors performing in porn videos made in California.

They tried this five years ago and failed. “We are going to find a legislator to author and carry a bill,” said AIDS Healthcare Foundation President Michael Weinstein. He likened such a requirement to worker safety provisions of California’s Labor Code, “which requires the use of hard hats and other garments and barriers as safety precautions on certain California work sites and locations.”

What nonsense. If only construction workers were as safe at work as porn actresses. No actresses have died as a result of workplace activity—a safety record that industries like construction, firefighting, and even the postal service cannot match.

By a strange coincidence, Cal/OSHA says it is mounting a probe in connection with the recent HIV exposure case. It, too, last tried this in 2004.

The unholy alliance between HIV activists and the state aims to shut down the porn industry, whose “immorality” is hated by both. Cal/OSHA knows that actresses are contractors, not employees, so most of its faux “caring” is completely irrelevant. And AIDS activists know that if legislation goes through, it will create a massive bureaucracy with inspections and other regulations that will bring the industry to a crawl (and not in a good way).

“Porn actress gets HIV” makes great headlines, and the bravado of “we’re gonna get legislation requiring condoms” will attract donations, but both are a desperate attempt to attack a legal industry that has a lower rate of disease than the rest of the country.

Which city has the highest rate of HIV infection in the U.S.? A city obsessed with screwing everyone, but which has no porn production—Washington, DC.

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Oprah: Anti-Vagina, Anti-Sex

Newsweek recently called out Oprah for being a quack. In a cover story titled “Crazy Talk: Oprah, Wacky Cures & You,” they cited shows she’s enthusiastically done on cancer, autism, and other subjects featuring non-experts offering ineffective or dangerous medical tips. She also endorses mystical new age “thinking” as a health strategy.

One thing Newsweek didn’t mention was Oprah’s ignorant, destructive positions on sex.

Take sexual orientation, for example—a subject that’s been in the news once or twice lately. As recently as 10 weeks ago, Oprah was asking psychologist Lisa Diamond if women turn to other women sexually “because of a shortage of men.” Oprah also wondered why, when women turn away from men, so many seem to choose women who don’t, um, look so feminine.

Oprah’s sexual ignorance, of course, isn’t limited to women. She talks about men as if she’s never met an actual adult man:
* When she read mail from viewers complaining about their husbands’ lack of interest, she was stunned–”Hard to believe,” she said. “We thought, you know, men always wanted it.”
* She opened one show by asking the audience: “True or false: once a cheater, always a cheater. What do you think?” In unison, the congregation chanted back the solemn testimony of the Church of Oprah: “True!” Women are, she says, “a big ol’ cheated-on club out there.”

Oprah is so focused on female victimization, in fact, that she even tells the astounding untruth that doctors pay more attention to the sexual aspects of prostate surgery than to hysterectomy. She also forgets to mention that more men die from prostate cancer than from breast or uterine cancer.

But to fully capture the flavor of Oprah’s discomfort with sex, go back a few months to the show that carried this warning:

“This program contains graphic content that is suitable for mature audiences only.”

And what was this “graphic content” that should only be watched by a select few? A chart from a high school biology textbook that celebrity sex therapist Laura Berman used to show where the vagina is.

Well, you may call it the vagina, but poor Oprah just can’t stand that ugly word. “Don’t you think vi-jay-jay sounds better than vagina?” she asked with a pained expression. And the urethral opening? That’s “where you pee-pee,” said the 55-year-old Oprah on national TV. Remember, this woman is the most influential sex educator in the history of the world.

A recent episode with Berman showing Oprah various vibrators did have promise. In a sign that the End Times may be coming, the show actually led to Amazon.com selling out of Berman’s brand of toys. But it ended predictably. As Berman was showing a little number that wrapped around the penis to provide clitoral stimulation during intercourse, Oprah reached her limit. “I’m not ready for this,” she said wanly. “I thought I was, but I’m not.”

Some naïve souls say Oprah educates and empowers. Her show does make women who suffer feel normal, even hopeful. But it neither educates nor empowers. The show celebrates victimhood, consistently trashes men, and offers conservative, moralistic pop psychology regarding sex and relationships. Staining a show featuring a high school anatomy drawing with a “graphic”/“mature audiences” warning speaks louder than anything in the show itself. It’s simply code for “bad.”

And if all that hasn’t hurt viewers enough, there’s also her mortal sin of unleashing the porn-hating, premarital sex-hating, kinky sex-hating Dr. Phil on the world. She says he’s the one who taught her what “normal sex” is.

David Carradine Comes—And Goes; Media Love It

Actor David Carradine was found hung several days ago, nude, with his genitals tied up and some porn at his feet.

As with so many of these cases, it was investigated as a homicide, then initially considered a suicide. It is, however, clearly something else—auto-erotic asphyxiation. That’s the King’s English for masturbating while seriously restricting one’s breathing.

This high-stakes ecstasy is more common than most people realize. Usually done in secret, it’s discovered when it goes wrong and proves fatal. Police and families typically cover it up, either from ignorance or shame. When Uncle Harvey is found suffocated or strangled wearing a dress with his semen on it, somehow “suicide” is the explanation most favored by his relatives. Under “cause” on a death certificate, there’s no box for “jacking off one second longer than safe.”

As with the occasional train wreck or exotic epidemic, TV immediately enlisted experts and “interested persons” to discuss the causes and details of this allegedly intriguing incident. Informed that some people ritually enhance their solitary orgasms with a rope around their neck or plastic bag over their head, we were also told not to try this at home. It’s dangerous! Now there’s a news flash—restricting the flow of oxygen until you’re almost dead is actually dangerous. Film at 11.

Fake news shows like Larry King and Anderson Cooper, along with authentic gossip shows like Entertainment Tonight, used the event to smuggle kinky sex onto TV.

Faced with the ideal subject—a combination of sex and death (all that was missing was weight loss), King actually said “we’re not here to smirk or get entertainment value” before asking his trashy questions. Of course not, Larry. We’re discussing a 72-year-old dead man’s masturbation for serious reasons.

What almost no TV show, website, or magazine article will mention is that millions of Americans routinely use milder forms of breath play during sex. Alone or with a partner, male or female, consciously or not, various people hold their breath while they climax, or use their breathing to delay orgasm. Some people learn to breathe so they can tolerate/enjoy the sexy pain of spanking or biting. And of course, many men and women play with gently (or not so gently) choking each other during oral sex, something often depicted in current pornography.

No, the media have little use for the actual, non-hysterical truth about sexuality. This week, they were too busy telling us two things we’ve been hearing all our lives:

* Multi-tasking is bad for you, and
* Masturbation is really bad for you.

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Anti-Choice Movement IS Responsible For Tiller’s Murder

In the hours following Dr. George Tiller’s assassination, the anti-choice movement sounded unusually reasonable, gathering in front of the Supreme Court this morning to denounce the murder.

But I don’t believe they mean it.

Because given their behavior, exactly what else did they expect?

For four years, Kansas Attorney General Phil Kline harassed Tiller, accusing him of protecting child rapists. Bill O’Reilly called Tiller a “baby killer,” “guilty of Nazi stuff” over two dozen times on national TV.

Mix this kind of rhetoric with the apocalyptic, millennial visions that are increasingly dominating American Christianity (more Americans believe in the Rapture than in Evolution), and exactly what should God-fearing people do?

Murder the satanic, death-loving abortionist sons of bitches.

The anti-choice movement is actively disclaiming blame for the “lone gunman” who assassinated Tiller. “We hold absolutely no responsibility for his death,” Operation Rescue founder Randall Terry said. But in the same breath, Randall also called Tiller “a mass murderer,” and referred to “child-killers.”

Does Peter Roff in U.S. News & World Report sound like he wants to prevent further assassinations? “[Tiller’s] killing is one more tragedy layered on top of the tragic deaths of untold numbers of unborn Americans,” he said.

The Rev. Pat Mahoney of the Christian Defense Coalition was honest about the real problem with the murder: “Politically, this could not have happened at a worse time.”

If the anti-choice movement really wants to discourage more murders, arson and domestic terrorism, they can. Not by calmly saying “please don’t murder the baby-killers we all hate,” but by changing their rhetoric and philosophy. By conceptualizing and talking about two legitimate worldviews, rather than one moral and one immoral—which must be destroyed.

But they won’t do that, because their righteous fight is not about abortion. People have always been free to not get abortions.

No, their movement is, and has always been, about imposing their view of morality on the rest of the country. They want to take away your right to do something that they don’t think you should be allowed to do. And that’s a bigger issue than whatever thing they want to criminalize.

The anti-choice movement cannot simultaneously continue to destroy secular, pluralist democracy while claiming it deserves a seat at the public policy table. They don’t simply want to change a few of America’s rules—they want to destroy the fundamental principles of our country.

Murder is, after all, what they want.

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When Comics Are Outlawed, Exactly Who Is Safer?

In 2003, Congress outlawed drawings, cartoons, and sculpture depicting minors engaging in sexually explicit acts, if a local jury found that it lacked “serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.”

You may not know that. But Christopher Handley, a 39-year-old Iowa office worker knows it now. He just pled guilty to owning some Japanese manga—comic books—with drawings of children being sexual with children, adults, and animals. He faces as much as 10 years in jail and a $250,000 fine. His life is ruined.

There was no allegation that he owned “child pornography,” no allegation that he ever touched a child sexually.

He was charged with, and pled guilty to, “Obscene visual representations of the sexual abuse of children.” Not photos of real children. Not computer morphs or simulations that look like real children. Cartoons. Line drawings.

The case started when customs officials intercepted and opened a package from Japan addressed to Handley. They found cartoon drawings of minors engaged in sexual acts. This material, along with the rest of the genre, is huge in Japan. Handley is a prolific collector of manga; not just “this type,” said his lawyer; “he collected everything that was out there.”

To get really creeped out, read the plea agreement. And say goodbye to Handley, the first person to be convicted for possessing cartoon art.

How did drawings of cartoon kids being sexually exploited by cartoon adults or cartoon animals become illegal in the U.S.? It’s an interesting—and important—story.

In 2002, the Supreme Court overturned the Child Pornography Prevention Act of 1996. The law had, among other things, criminalized virtual child pornography. So in 2003, Congress passed the PROTECT Act. To get around the Supreme Court’s support for the Constitution, Congress created a sub-category of speech that does not have First Amendment protection: drawings of childhood sexuality that a jury deemed obscene.

By excluding material that had “serious value,” the law could stand. But we continue to see that this exclusion is shaky and undependable. Convene a jury of people who are angry, ignorant, frightened, or very religious, and the concept of “serious value” wilts away—Shakespeare, Picasso, and manga be damned. Handley’s lawyer recommended the plea agreement because he feared the jury wouldn’t acquit his client.

Child pornography laws—including the PROTECT Act—are meant to protect children. Real child porn is the documentation of a crime, the sexual exploitation of children. Who is being protected by eliminating drawings of children being sexual—whether the kids are drawn smiling or terrified?

Laws like these soothe adult consciences, comfort adult rage, and grant the illusion of adult power. By siphoning precious law enforcement resources, they make actual children less safe, not more.

America is developing a new class of political prisoner: those who think thoughts about sex and children that are judged evil. When you consider that only 25 years ago these thoughts were not unthinkable, you have to wonder: what thoughts about sex do you have today that will one day be declared legally unthinkable?

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Is THAT What They Fought & Died For?

Today is Memorial Day, when we’re supposed to honor those who have fallen in defense of our great nation and its principles. Many will do this by participating in a parade, going to a cemetery, or looking through photos of loved ones buried across the globe.

There are other ways to celebrate the sacrifices that have made America the world’s most radical experiment in free speech and free thought. Remember, it’s not the fact that you were born here that makes America great. It’s the principles that America stands for, struggles with, and protects.

So this week you’ll be honoring those who have fought and died for America when you:

* Use birth control
* Download porn
* Watch the Sopranos or South Park
* Go to a raunchy comedy club or listen to a raunchy CD
* Have non-intercourse sex
* Get a lapdance at a neighborhood club
* Read a gay magazine
* Have sex with someone of a different race
* Write a letter to the editor about same-sex marriage

Every single one of these acts took a court decision to affirm its legality. Many of these required Supreme Court action. Yes, the same historic court that decided the fate of racial segregation, “one man, one vote,” and the 2000 presidential election was needed to decide that whites and blacks could have sex together, and that Americans could legally purchase contraceptives.

When you live your normal life this week—using condoms, watching grownup TV, shopping in private on the internet, enjoying oral sex, ignoring ads for massage parlors in your local newspaper—you’ll be honoring the lives and hard work of thousands of plaintiffs, lawyers, judges, clerks, and volunteers.

These men and women may not have died in the line of duty, but they are on the front lines, serving our country. We have no medals for Bill Baird, Phil Harvey, Mildred Loving, or other heroes who have risked their lives, freedom, and sanity to protect our sexual expression. They fought not against a foreign enemy, but against tremendous pressure right here at home—from tyrannical majorities, powerful minorities, vindictive government agents.

These same elements threaten our basic American rights today.

Like other freedoms, sexual freedom isn’t free. Today, on Memorial Day, let’s remember those mostly-anonymous people who struggled and suffered to make America safer for sexual expression and the commercial and intellectual activities needed to support it.

Some will say that granddad or the local barber didn’t die in Flanders, Gettysburg, or Vietnam so that his neighbor could go see a stripper, or his nephew could buy rubbers or hear Jon Stewart say “dickhead.” I say that that’s exactly why people died to defend America—a special country in which people have the extraordinary right to do, say, and think things of which their neighbors disapprove.

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Abortion: “Morally Equivalent” Doesn’t Mean “Politically Equivalent”

The President spoke eloquently this week on the need for Americans to find common ground on the issue of abortion.

He made a start by naming the ONLY common ground—the desire of almost everyone to reduce the number of abortions done each year.

And that’s the end of the “common ground” conversation. People don’t even agree on WHY they want fewer abortions. Some people think abortion is a bad thing. Other people think the need for abortion is a bad thing.

The anti-choice side (we’re ALL pro-life, after all) says it takes a “moral” position—that abortion is wrong. The pro-choice side says it takes a “moral” position—that adults should have personal autonomy.

So OK, everyone has a moral position on abortion. These positions may conflict, but they’re both based on a moral vision. Neither side can logically deny that—these positions are based on equally heartfelt, equally clear, moral visions.

What is NOT equivalent, however, is the political relevance of these moral visions.
The success of our country, our political system, and our way of life comes from a set of principles—unusual in the history of the world—that are NOT up for discussion.

The most important one of those principles is this: Everyone is allowed to believe what they want. Adults are free to do what they want, as long as they don’t hurt other people. In exchange for this extraordinary freedom, adults are expected to tolerate other adults believing and doing what they want.

While the pro-choice and anti-choice positions are equally based on morality, the difference between them politically is quite simple, and quite profound.

The pro-choice position is “I’ll behave according to my morality, and you behave according to yours.” The anti-choice position is “I’ll behave according to my morality, and you must behave according to mine, too.”

And that’s the end of the common ground that our President, and all these feel-good dialoging communities, yearn for.

So let’s acknowledge the real world.

Let’s all agree to do what we can to reduce the number of abortions. Let all the self-described “pro-life” people finally prove that they’re genuinely against abortion–and not simply against sex—by supporting contraception, and the sex education that encourages people to use it.

Beyond that, the “common ground” is to be found in our uniquely American legacy.

Over two centuries ago, our founders created a system that magically made it possible for people with conflicting moralities to live and thrive together. Until then, human communities were either morally homogenous, or they lived with continuous warfare. America was the first country with neither, and so it has been a fountain of creativity and wealth—and yes, religious fervor—ever since.

The system works. People just have to live within its rules.

There’s a name for people who want to undermine the political system in order to impose their moral viewpoint on their fellow citizens. In other countries, we call them terrorists.

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One Pervert Does Not Equal “Danger”

When it comes to America’s panic about sex, respect for fact is in short supply.

Blogs, CNN & Fox, well-intentioned family advocates, right-wing “decency” groups, and the whole machinery of the Sexual Disaster Industry continually pour out a single message: there’s sexual danger out there waiting for every child, woman, and man.

In reality, many facts of life are pretty encouraging: the FBI says that rape, child sexual exploitation, suicide, and domestic violence have all declined this past decade. But if you have ears, eyes, or a computer, you’d never know it. Sexual violence and exploitation are what pass for “news” and “public debate” in America.

Understandably, people are upset about their perceptions of danger. But many people are also upset about any attempt to discuss this alleged danger rationally. Here are some common beliefs and behaviors that interfere with clear thinking.

* A story is a trend; anecdotes are evidence
The Today Show, among others, says that sexting “caused” a suicide, leading to nationwide calls for its criminalization; stories are also commonly told about one or two guys masturbating in a library, leading to demands that all public computers be filtered. Tales like these get the public’s juices flowing. But the only danger they really reflect is the danger of creating fear-driven public policy.

* “One is too many”
We’re told that since “one [molest, rape, divorce, hate crime, botched abortion] is too many,” the fact that rates aren’t nearly as high as headlines imply is irrelevant. That’s like saying, ‘since even one kid with measles is too many, let’s abandon vaccination.’

* Victimization creates expertise
A typical example is Congress inviting Miss Utah to testify at a hearing about internet porn. Her expertise? As a teen she typed in “hotmale” instead of “hotmail,” saw an explicit photo, and was scared almost to death. Similarly, Donna Rice Hughes is considered an expert on internet porn because her ex-husband became a “porn addict” and destroyed their marriage.

* Challenging conventional wisdom reflects a lack of compassion
Anti-porn, anti-exploitation, and anti-hate advocates like Morality in Media’s Robert Peters often say things like, “if you’d ever seen a child after he’s been raped, you’d change your tune,” or “if you actually cared about women who are trafficked, you wouldn’t argue about how often this actually happens.”

America is reeling from a decade of aggressively anti-science government and anti-fact blogging and pundit culture. The very nature of expertise and reality are now up for grabs. In a culture aching with sexual alienation, fear, and rage, this is dangerous.

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