People want what they can't have, and everyone covets that whiff of danger.
A reader writes:
I saw your blog today, and it reminded me of something an older gay man told me. He said that one thing he missed about the era before homosexuality was accepted (the pre-90s I guess) was that it was kind of a thrill having to sneak around to gay bars and underground establishments. He said it was fun discovering people were gay when you met them at clubs at night. As bad as things were for gay people when it was taboo, there does sound like the lifestyle was more adventurous because of that, like you had to live a double life. What do you think?
The cocktail was really invented - or popularized - during prohibition to make drinks from sketchy liquor. My grandmother loved to go to the "blind pigs" or "speakeasies" in New York City. It was thrilling to be breaking the law! So scandalous! Her parents (strict Lutherans) were mortified!
That being said, my great uncle shot himself after the police raided a gay bar and put his name and photo in the paper. Some thrill.
But the reader has a point - throughout history, people have reveled in being "naughty" and pushing boundaries. In some cases, there are celebrations such as Mardi Gras,where people are expected to do things they would not ordinarily do. Kids love to scare their parents with offbeat clothing and hairstyles - Mom and Dad hate it! And that's the point.
The whole drug culture, so to speak, is based in part on this - the speakeasies of our generation. Lighting up at "4:20" is the height of naughtiness and even now that it is legal, I see many marijuana smokers sort of sneak a puff as if they were being bad boys. I guess cigarettes are the new marijuana and of course, vaping is the new bad-boy thing to do. "People keep telling me to stop!" says one bad-boy, "but I'm a rebel!" Hope that lung transplant comes through.
Catering to people's desires to be naughty has always been a major job of organized crime, which has become increasingly frustrated as one vice or sin or another is made legal and socially accepted. How can you make millions running shady gay bars in a bad part of town, when the gays no longer feel ostracized? How can you make money from adult book and video stores when people shamelessly download porn on their phones? How can you make money from prostitution when your child's schoolteacher has an OnlyFans page?
Obviously, we have to bring back shame - and that seems to be a big plank of the GOP agenda. Hey, if they have to be ashamed, why shouldn't everyone else be, too?
On a smaller scale you see this in everyday life. Speeding, for example, is another "bad boy" naughty behavior that people engage in, to experience the thrill of being a scofflaw, if even a minor one. People like to play their music just a bit too loud, just to be a "rebel" and see if someone wants to make an issue of it. And we all do these foolish things on occasion, as we strain at the leash of our civilized society.
It reminds me of my posting on Inheritance Scenarios where I listed some examples from real life, of friends and family members who were screwed out of an inheritance (or someone tried to). A young law student wrote to me and said, "That could never happen, that would be illegal!" Oh, to be a naive young law student! The reality is, most people don't have the intelligence or money to litigate such issues, and as a result, an executor can loot an estate and the other "heirs" might not do much about it.
I told the young law student that yes, those things are illegal, that's why we have laws. But also that people often do illegal things - which is why we have lawyers (and cops and courts and jails). People are always pushing boundaries, sometimes for personal gain, other times for a thrill.
Of course, thrills can be had without breaking laws. I remember when I was a kid, we would go skiing, and it was always this mixture of excitement and dread going to the ski slope. Would I remember what I learned last year? Would I fall and break my leg? We're sure to find out - shortly!
But getting back to the reader's comment, did the mainstreaming of homosexuality result in the decline of gay bars? Perhaps, but perhaps also the "thrill" of going to a "forbidden" bar has now been passed to bachelorette parties and whatnot. The thrill of being in a "naughty" place on the eve of one's wedding is an attractive lure. It is also why some bachelorette parties hire male strippers. Naughty, Naughty!
Of course, like with anything else, when you move the football down the field, you are constantly changing the goal for a first down. George Carlin blessed us with his "Seven Dirty Words" and as a result, today, you hear toddlers repeating them. The goalpost has been moved. Of course, we have new dirty words we are not allowed to say - politically incorrect ones. You can say "Motherfucker" but not the N-word. And in a way, this is progress, as one is a swearword and the other a racist insult. But you still see some folks getting a thrill by saying the naughty word when no one is looking (or they thought no one was looking).
When I was young, children born out-of-wedlock were called "Bastards" whereas today they represent about half of the newborn population. Premarital sex, once taboo, has been normalized. What passes for sexual promiscuity or kinky behavior has changed as well, with more and more extreme sexual behaviors becoming normalized. In some regard, this is a healthy thing, provided people are kind to one another and everything is between consenting adults. On the other hand, there are people (I've met them) who turn sex into a hobby, with each new sex act another box to check off on their list of things to do (and equipment to buy). There is such a thing as too much of a good thing, I think.
One last thing. When I was President of the Gay & Lesbian Student Association, we organized a "Gay Pride" event and even chartered a bus to drive to New York for the gay pride parade. I was handing out pamphlets at a local gay bar, and an older gay man took one from me and read it and handed it back. "Gay Pride?" he said, "I'm not proud of this!"
How sad for him. But he was from another era - like my Great Uncle - and the shame and thrill of it was part and parcel of the deal, I guess. It is like an old joke I read a long time ago, "If you aren't at least a little embarrassed after having sex, you didn't do it right!"
Because let's face it, sex is awkward when viewed in the cold light of day. And maybe being naughty is one way our brains convince ourselves to do it.
