Marcus Bachmann and the Dangerous Modern Myth of ‘Sexual Orientation’

Posted on | August 16, 2011 | 47 Comments

My friend Da Tech Guy got into an argument with Cynthia Yockey about Michele Bachmann’s husband, Marcus. Everyone is jumping up and down yelling that he sets off their “gaydar,” pointing especially to his (alleged) involvement with the NARTH “reparative therapy” movement. Between that and his (alleged) gay mannerisms, these armchair sexuality sleuths have concluded that Marcus Bachmann is a closet case, another Ted Haggard scandal waiting to happen.

What is at the heart of such speculation is a myth that arose in the 20th century, based largely on the theories of Sigmund Freud and Alfred Kinsey, which holds that all human beings have an inborn sexual essence which must be fulfilled in order for them to be psychologically healthy. This myth of “sexual orientation” (sometimes known as “sexual identity,” as it pertains to transgenderism) has so pervaded our culture that most people are no longer capable of understanding it as myth.

Since the Sexual Revolution of the 1960s, the Freudian concept of “repression” has been hijacked by the advocates of liberation, who insist that it is an infringement of civil rights to expect people to resist sexual urges. I’ve sometimes called this the “Desire Is Destiny” theory of sexuality, but you could also think of it as a particular manifestation of the Veruca Salt Syndrome: I want what I want and I want it now!

Given the high-profile status of the Official Gay Rights Movement as a loudly influential constituency of the Democratic Party, we most often encounter this liberationist argument in association with homosexuality, and most people never even notice how this dangerous idea — the belief that we are entitled as a matter of right to the satisfaction of our erotic desires — is well-nigh ubiquitous throughout our society.

When you see a businessman divorce his wife of 30 years in order to marry his receptionist, or when Mary Kay LeTourneau wrecks her life to pursue a taboo romance with Vili Fualaau, these are manifestations of the same basic concept at the root of the gay-rights lobby’s “born that way” argument: Desire is destiny, and of all the happiness that we are free to pursue, no pursuit is more important than a sexual partner who fulfills our deepest longings.

When a belief so pervades a culture as this one has pervaded our culture, it becomes impossible for most people to understand it rationally, for they have no other frame of reference. We might compare it to liberal bias in the news media. As I’ve often said, most journalists don’t notice liberal bias for the same reason fish don’t notice water — it’s everywhere, and it’s all they’ve ever known.

So, too, with the Desire Is Destiny theory of sexuality, promulgated so relentlessly (first by Kinsey, then by Hugh Hefner, and then by damned near everybody) that we cannot think about sex in any other terms. What is overlooked is that this liberationist theory denies the power of human will and human choice. If we desire someone, the liberationist argument would have us believe, we must act on that desire or else suffer psychological trauma as a result of the (harmful) repression of our desire. The only “moral” standard by which any such pursuit may be judged is whether the resulting sexual encounter is between consenting adults.

To explain what is so wrong and dangerous about this theory would be a topic worth addressing at book length, but nobody’s given me a lucrative contract for such a book, and therefore for the sake of brevity and economy I will limit myself to two examples that contradict the theory:

Lord Baden Powell — In recent decades, many revisionists have theorized that the famed founder of the Boy Scouts was a closeted homosexual. About 10 years ago, I read an exhaustive modern biography of Baden-Powell which pursued this theme. I’ve forgotten the name of the author, but he had searched every letter, every journal, every possible clue that might be considered evidence of Baden-Powell’s homosexuality and . . . nothing. While we can say that Baden-Powell greatly admired vigorous manliness, in a way that would strike the modern mind as highly suggestive of an erotic attraction, there is no evidence at all that Baden-Powell ever acted on such an attraction. Remaining a bachelor until age 55, he married a 23-year-old woman of a distinctly tomboyish nature, with whom he sired three children. One might suspect that, in the modern “liberated” age, Baden-Powell would have been openly gay and his wife would have been a lesbian. But they lived in Victorian Britain, and quite happily conformed to social norms of that time and place, with no evident trauma as a result of whatever “repression” this may have involved.
Me — If you went back and surveyed my college acquaintances, I’m pretty sure I would have been voted Least Likely to Become a Happily Married Father of Six. If we may classify monogamy as a “sexual orientation,” this was no part of my genetic hard-wiring. My mysterious transformation is instantly de-mystified, once people meet Mrs. Other McCain, whose charm and beauty inspire another mystery: “How the heck did a lowlife dog like McCain get a fine woman like that?” Without pretending to answer that question, I’ll say that having gotten her, I made up my mind to keep her, and thus the lowlife dog had to change his ways.

“Lead me not into temptation,” as the prayer goes, and I will resist the temptation to deliver a lecture on the nature of psychological sublimation. Nevertheless, the safety of civilization requires that we repress and sublimate our unruly anti-social impulses.

Let the liberationists mock me for suppressing my “orientation” toward accumulating a harem of nubile concubines.

If Marcus Bachmann is a closeted gay man, then I’m a closeted polygamous cult leader.

And while Cynthia Yockey is free to insist that she is a lesbian by nature, incapable of erotic feeling toward any man, I am equally free to insist that she is in denial about her true orientation. In an alternative universe — where social norms were dictated by the insane King Stacy, Emperor of McCainia — she would be merely another of the innumerable concubines in my vast harem.

Some people would call that alternative universe a “nightmare dystopia.” But it’s not my fault they’re suffering from McCainophobia.

Get help with your problem, you sick freaks.

Category: Gays, Michele Bachmann, Sex

Comments

47 Responses to “Marcus Bachmann and the Dangerous Modern Myth of ‘Sexual Orientation’”

Peregrine
August 16th, 2011 @ 5:37 pm

So a straight dude who’s a hardcore womanizer is perhaps secretly gay, therefore a gay dude who does ’em by the dozen is… secretly straight? Until there’s some sort of consistency to the myths, I seriously doubt there will be much consistency in the theories. Or the other way around, whichever.
Adjoran
August 16th, 2011 @ 5:46 pm

People will come up with the most elaborately absurd theories to justify their own beliefs/feelings/behaviors.

Come to think of it, I could add the same comment to the Krugman thread below . . .
just a conservative girl
August 16th, 2011 @ 5:47 pm

So what if he is gay by nature? He isn’t living that way. He is happily married and being a good husband and father.

I don’t fall into the category that orientation is a choice, but I do know that in almost all circumstances having sex is. Liberals don’t want me in their bedrooms so they stay out of the Bachmann’s as well.
Peter Ingemi
August 16th, 2011 @ 5:48 pm

I think I would have had two bust out laughing moments if rather than a written speech this was a debate with Cynthia standing in front of you.

The first would be the look in on her face when you finished the paragraph concerning the Kingdom of McCainia.

The second would be the look on your face as she decked you.
Anonymous
August 16th, 2011 @ 5:59 pm

My argument is not that “orientation is a choice,” JACG. As I say, the untrammeled pursuit of my own “orientation” would lead toward a cult compound, with myself enshrined as the polygyamous prophet served by a vast harem. Or rather (in the real world) it would lead me to a cheap efficiency apartment where I’d live the lonely life of an impoverished middle-aged divorced man.

However fixed by nature any “orientation” may be, we remain free to choose our own actions and behaviors, thus to avoid those behaviors that would be harmful to our own best interests or to the best interests of the larger society. This is a truth that the “born that way” theorists refuse to acknowledge, because of their Veruca Salt-like notions of sexual entitlement.
Vera Eyzendooren
August 16th, 2011 @ 6:11 pm

Have you heard of Phil Hendrie show? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Hendrie He has a show, where the guests are not real people. He is the host, he is the guest with different voices, he argues with him self. He is the one started the rumors, actually I cannot call it rumors, because that is what his show is all about. Last Saturday, he was talking about this subject with his imaginary guest. I cannot believe some people believed it. Well I should believe it, because people call his show and argue with his imaginary guest. If you go to the archives of his show http://www.newphilhendrieshow.com/ you might be able to find the information about Bachmann which aired last Saturday, I believe. I was in my car and I listened for about 5 minutes, by accident.
Dicentra spectabilis
August 16th, 2011 @ 6:19 pm

Hey, I’ve seen the Speedo photo: I’d join the harem.

With the caveat, of course, that I’ve got Nothing Else Going On, nor am I young or nubile.

And I get my own bathroom.
Anonymous
August 16th, 2011 @ 6:46 pm

Violence is not the answer.
Anonymous
August 16th, 2011 @ 6:48 pm

That explains alot.
Lisa Graas
August 16th, 2011 @ 7:00 pm

If that isn’t the best post by Stacy McCain ever, it’s at least in the top three.
Stacy McCain Explains Why I’m Not Getting My SuperFriends Membership Card From the U.N.http://blog.lisagraas.com/2011/08/16/stacy-mccain-explains-why-im-not-getting-my-superfriends-membership-card-from-the-u-n/
Charles
August 16th, 2011 @ 7:13 pm

What lesbian wouldn’t want to live among the innumberable concubines in your vast harem?
Anonymous
August 16th, 2011 @ 7:14 pm

Then you’re asking the wrong question.
Anonymous
August 16th, 2011 @ 7:18 pm

You pretty well nailed the subject matter RSM, except that you pretended to go along with the myth that Kinsey was a serious researcher, rather than the pervert and pederast that he actually was. There is way too much damage that Kinsey has done to our society already; taking him seriously is a bad idea, especially now that the truth about him has emerged.
Cynthia Yockey, A Conservative Lesbian
August 16th, 2011 @ 3:21 pm

Stacy McCain vouches for Marcus Bachmann by hiring him to babysit his youngest son…

What could go wrong?……
Joy McCann
August 16th, 2011 @ 7:22 pm

On the other hand, as Ace once pointed out, there’s something unseemly in saying, “I’m not promiscuous, so why can’t gay people simply take their vows of celibacy, and shut up?”

For society to recommend monogamy to straights is not the same as recommending celibacy to gays.

Fortunately, we have a separation of church and state, so none of us is in charge of what others do in private, as long as they aren’t interfering with others’ family lives.
Joy McCann
August 16th, 2011 @ 7:25 pm

Yeah–nothing more attractive than a guy wearing a Speedo . . . {shudder}
Anonymous
August 16th, 2011 @ 7:26 pm

And there was (and is) a lot of that going on. It’s not inevitable that polygamy will lead to homosexual behavior, but that’s the way to bet… because if the hareem is large enough, not even Superstud of the South Stacy McCain is going to have enough to go around. And all the drooling guys pressed against the hareem window will have to find their own solutions. I’d try to corner the blow-up doll market in McCainia, myself…
Zilla of the Resistance
August 16th, 2011 @ 8:04 pm

Self control is a good thing. It has spared hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people from getting the snot beat out of them by me.
Tuesday Must Reads « Nice Deb
August 16th, 2011 @ 4:30 pm

[…] and bringing its society to its collective knees. RS McCain goes where most bloggers dare not go: Marcus Bachmann and the Dangerous Modern Myth of ‘Sexual Orientation’: My friend Da Tech Guy got into an argument with Cynthia Yockey about Michele Bachmann’s husband, […]
Peter Ingemi
August 16th, 2011 @ 8:32 pm

Actually as I said on my own blog this would be followed by Stacy getting up, he and Cynthia both turning to me and saying “This is all your fault” and then decking me with a simultaneous blow from each of them.
Peter Ingemi
August 16th, 2011 @ 8:34 pm

I thought my comment was the best in this thread until I read this one.
Anonymous
August 16th, 2011 @ 8:46 pm

Apparently it takes a peculiar sense of humor to be me.
Anonymous
August 16th, 2011 @ 9:13 pm

Who is recommending celibacy to gays? The logical extension of the argument (the one that Ace apparently reconstructed as a strawman), aside from whether one agrees with it, is that the norm (or recommendation) = heterosexual monogamy for anyone who is engaging in sexual relations.

That some people might not be attracted to members of the opposite sex would be for them to sort out for themselves – i.e., it’s a “problem” that first occurs in, and/or is confined to, their own minds – but that every such individual desire (or lack thereof) ought not necessarily be the basis on which the larger society would establish its sexual norms.

As a consequentialist, I’d wonder about the long-term consequences of “progressive” sexual norms. The purpose of such norms is to maximize overall human happiness, welbeing, prosperity, etc., not to counteract possible bad feelings and/or negative reactions encountered by a few extra people as a result of that minority’s sexual predilictions and life choices.
DaveO
August 16th, 2011 @ 9:52 pm

Once again, the subject of homosexuality is brought out to destroy the reputation of a conservative. In this case, a candidate’s spouse. Rather like the theory that Mr. Palin fathered Trig by his daughter, Bristol.

I know outing conservative gays and lesbians is a blood sport among the left GLBT community, but I’m disheartened to see conservatives taking up the same conservative targets.
Quartermaster
August 16th, 2011 @ 10:37 pm

Violence certainly settled the hash of Carthage and the Erighs. Carthage gave Rome no more trouble, and the Erigh no more to the Iroquois.

As Wombat alludes to, there is a question to which violence is an acceptable answer. perhaps even necessary.
Anonymous
August 16th, 2011 @ 10:56 pm

Lots of them, even. 🙂
GayPatriot » On the myth of desire — and the fixed nature of our sexuality
August 16th, 2011 @ 6:57 pm

[…] an extended, but thoughtful, rant today on human sexuality, R.S. McCain questions our modern notion of sexual expression: . . . with the Desire Is Destiny theory of sexuality, promulgated so relentlessly (first by […]
Anonymous
August 16th, 2011 @ 11:10 pm

Somebody is missing the irony of a comment such as “violence is not the answer” coming from me.
Orientation « Forks and Hope
August 16th, 2011 @ 9:20 pm

[…] get back to the SciFi/Fantasy in a minute, but I want to link this first: Marcus Bachmann and the Dangerous Modern Myth of ‘Sexual Orientation’. What is at the heart of such speculation is a myth that arose in the 20th century, based largely […]
Anonymous
August 17th, 2011 @ 2:00 am

I’m all too familiar with Kinsey’s fraudulence, Mr. Gersh. His theories, however, were promoted widely and embedded themselves in our culture to such an extent that most people don’t even recognize them as such.
Anonymous
August 17th, 2011 @ 2:01 am

Obviously, the incentives might be ambiguous.
Anonymous
August 17th, 2011 @ 2:05 am

Of course, Cynthia will deny that she finds me irresistibly attractive. Many women suffer from inner conflicts about that. But this is just the price our society pays for tolerating McCainophobia.
cathy
August 17th, 2011 @ 2:28 am

Well, I thought it was funny.
Anonymous
August 17th, 2011 @ 3:24 am

Why unseemly?
Polichinello
August 17th, 2011 @ 6:00 am

I find this rumor unbelievably goofy. The man has five–count’em, FIVE–kids. You don’t have five kids unless you’re into women.
darleenclick
August 17th, 2011 @ 6:14 am

depends on the guy and the size of his Speedo …
ThePaganTemple
August 17th, 2011 @ 12:29 pm

It’s really not that big a deal if he was gay at one time. At least he can say he practices what he preaches.
Bob Belvedere
August 17th, 2011 @ 1:52 pm

Well…I don’t know…but I do know that ‘peculiar’ fits.
Bob Belvedere
August 17th, 2011 @ 1:53 pm

You too, huh?
Bob Belvedere
August 17th, 2011 @ 2:02 pm

-The Leftists who are pushing the theory that Mr. Bachmann is homosexual remind me of those kids in high school who thought anyone who read books and/or wore glasses were ‘fags’.

-Ralph Richardson and Alex Guiness: effeminate in many of their gestures – straight as arrows.

Rock Hudson and James Dean: GAGS [Gay As Goat S–t].

Go figure.
ThePaganTemple
August 17th, 2011 @ 3:41 pm

You know what that’s for. He practices a therapy that purports to cure gay people, which homosexuals find offensive. They can’t dispute his therapeutic practices on their merits, evidently, so they attack him personally by defining him as a self-loathing, closeted gay who projects his self-loathing onto other gay men and boys. I’ve also heard that at least one of his patients went on to commit suicide. I don’t know whether that’s true or not, but the obvious implication to the charge is that he is responsible for any suicide committed by any gay person who has been a patient at his clinic.

All this is, of course, more of that “civil tone” liberal Democrats are so well noted for.
ThePaganTemple
August 17th, 2011 @ 3:41 pm

You know what that’s for. He practices a therapy that purports to cure gay people, which homosexuals find offensive. They can’t dispute his therapeutic practices on their merits, evidently, so they attack him personally by defining him as a self-loathing, closeted gay who projects his self-loathing onto other gay men and boys. I’ve also heard that at least one of his patients went on to commit suicide. I don’t know whether that’s true or not, but the obvious implication to the charge is that he is responsible for any suicide committed by any gay person who has been a patient at his clinic.

All this is, of course, more of that “civil tone” liberal Democrats are so well noted for.
GayPatriot » The Marcus Bachmann Obsession
August 17th, 2011 @ 2:32 pm

[…] the rest of her post. Like Stacy McCain in the post I linked yesterday, she raises some interesting issues, not that I agree with […]
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August 17th, 2011 @ 5:02 pm

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