Perverts

Barry Dredze
5 min readDec 2, 2022
Photo by Tyler Merbler (Flickr/Creative Commons)

Perversion, in its dictionary definition, takes us much further than so-called unconventional sexual depravity as it is commonly used in everyday conversation:

“[T]he act of changing something that is good or right into something that is bad or wrong; the result of this: the perversion of justice; Her account was a perversion of the truth.”

“1: the action of perverting: the condition of being perverted. 2: a perverted form especially: an aberrant sexual practice or interest especially when habitual.”

In fact, expanding upon those commonly used characterizations of perversion can be most enlightening.

During an argument over LGBTQ+ rights, I once called an old neighbor and frenemy of mine a “pervert.” Since they firmly believed, perhaps as an article of faith, that LGBTQ+ people are the perverts (“love the sinner, hate the sin!”), they did not take it well. But I will always stand by it. Especially with folks that are presumptuous enough to assert any privilege to define what is “normal” or not. In fact, I might even suggest that those who obsess about how anyone else but whoever they happen to be fucking gets off, especially to the point of public policy discourse, is a little weird. So, they didn’t like that and that’s tough, because in these United States of America, we should elect lawmakers to make laws, not decide punishments for subjective sins.

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Barry Dredze

Just another mortal, tweaking my cognitive map on the fly.