The Betty Pages sprung out of some conversations Betty Desire a local drag queen and I were having in a gay bar. These editorials may be out of context now and were written for a local audience in the Bellingham area. but I am sure readers everywhere can make some sense of parts of them.

What a Shame

October 2004

It is amazing how closely sex is tied into shame. They seem to go hand in hand no matter how liberated we get. If you scratch someone hard enough you always find some shame. And if you don't you at least find someone trying to shame them. That I think is the real tragedy here. Shame is probably one of the most effective ways of controlling a populations and keeping a social order intact. Sex on the other hand is probably one of the most threatening things to many social orders.

So if your social order is threatened by something that has such a strong drive in each and every individual, you need the big guns to contain it. The Mighty Mo' of social control is shame. Shame is so powerful that you won't even talk about it. People are unwilling to even acknowledge much of the shame they suffer. Shame can make big parts of your personality, things that you are driven to be, whither away. Shame fights anything that threatens change. As our society becomes less dependent economically on social orders of the past we are starting to shed a lot of that shame.

Look at all sorts of things that threatened to de stabilize society, those that threatened the lineage of agrarian wealth, adultery, homosexuality, divorce, premarital sex. Or those that threatened the traditional nuclear family, divorce, marriage rights, polyamoury, bigamy. Or those things that challenge our definitions of acceptable sex, prostitution, erotic entertainment, porn, BDSM, swinging. Each of these things is slowly casting off its shame.

One of the leading instruments in this has been the internet. All over America those who were cowed into hiding in their own houses, behind a picket fences, 2.3 kids and a dog were finding out that they were not alone. That whatever the thing was that they desired and were ashamed of was available, out there, and there was a club, group or place where it was not a cause of shame. Thats a first step and maybe the only one you are ready to take, but its only the first.

There are many other steps a society or group takes in shedding its shame. Small enclaves of safety come first. Then larger safety zones. Then out and out blatant displays of an activity. And after a while acceptance. If not by those on the outside at least by the "us". Those on the inside. its hard to admit but in those early stage we are just about as bad as those who condemn "us". We propagate shame in the name of pride as we mature. We use shame to control our own community. Then hopefully one day we get over it.

Divorce was something that marked one with a lifelong burden of shame a generation ago. And while many still decry the increasing divorce rate in our society the reality is that almost all divorces are people seeking a better situation for themselves. The drive for something better won out in a few folks, then a few more, then after a while there were enough people publicly admitting to divorce, that it no longer became something to be ashamed of. In fact it has become something that just "is".

That is the real test of shame and pride. There is a saying in some recovery programs that goes roughly "fake until you can make it". A lot of actions I see by people attempting to reclaim pride in something around sexuality are like that. We know that we shouldn't have to be ashamed of it anymore, but we still are. We fight back with large displays of pride. Over the top actions to demonstrate that we will not be cowed by those who criticize us and would have us hide. We draw strength from the condemnation of others and the battle to establish ourselves as with out shame. Then one day we just "are". We no longer feel a drive to overcome someone elses opinion. Our own opinion of ourselves becomes our focus and we just are a "_______". A matter of fact existence, that does not take its strength from approval or disapproval of an outside group.

My hope is we all can be a productive part of that path. Eradicating shame one bit at a time as we go along.