There are many things that grind my metaphorical gears. I don't care for Tories (unless they're recently deceased with a comedy orange up the anus). I abhor animal cruelty (unless said cruelty has resulted in a semi-decent burger). I despise slugs: they simply scare the crap out of me.But one thing that really makes me angry is homophobia. Because of our society's former homophobia Oscar Wilde was imprisoned and forced to undergo hard labor.
His crime?
He liked the cock. He liked the cock and he lived in a ridiculous society that said it was illegal for men to like the cock.
Quite why a government – any government – should decide who can like the cock and who can't is a mystery to me.
The Russians are violently anti-gay. The Russian punk band Pussy-Riot has been imprisoned and one of their members has been disappeared. (I deliberately used that transitive verb in its intransitive/Orwellian form).India has recently criminalised sodomy. For a country that can’t guarantee the safety of women riding on public transport, the idea of criminalising consensual sexual relations between men seems, to me, to be a little misguided if not downright asinine.
Earlier this week Australia’s Supreme Court overturned legislation allowing gay marriage, effectively annulling the legality of many recent nuptials.
It’s disconcerting to think that, in these times of global economic hardship, so many of the world’s governments are focused on who’s allowed to like the cock and who’s allowed to eat the pussy. You’d have thought there were more important matters at hand, such as fracking, global warming, child poverty, impending environmental catastrophes, medical developments human rights violations etc.
It’s even more worrying to think that our coalition government, currently being mismanaged by Cameron and Clegg, the Chuckle Brothers of British politics, is one of the few that seems to be making the right choices about these matters. Back in 1910 the actress Mrs Patrick Campbell is reported to have made the remark, “Does it really matter what these affectionate people do — so long as they don’t do it in the streets and frighten the horses?” She was speaking about gay men but I think the attitude can be applied to every brand of consensual sexual relations. It’s a shame there weren’t more people blessed with her open-mindedness before Wilde’s incarceration. It’s an even greater shame that today, more than a century since she made that remark, the world isn’t home to more free thinkers of her astute perspicacity.
I’ll leave the last word here to Oscar Wilde with a passage from his Ballad of Reading Gaol. Keep in mind this is from the man who gave us The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Importance of Being Earnest and Salome. These are some of the words he wrote whilst being imprisoned for liking the cock.
I know not whether Laws be right,
Or whether Laws be wrong;
All that we know who lie in gaol
Is that the wall is strong;
And that each day is like a year,
A year whose days are long.
