Long long ago, when I was not much more than a boy, gay novelist Truman Capote startled the chattering classes by coming up with a new word for heterosexuals: "the grims." This was meant by way of contrast to "the gays" -- the fun-loving variety of homo sapiens which behaved more like Aesop's irresponsible grasshopper than did the grim heterosexual ants.

While Capote had a point, "grims" never took hold as an appellation. (I can't find the Capote quote anywhere on the internet, but I did find a reference to it in a comment stating that "In the Sixties there was a movment to call heterosexuals 'Grims.'." Trust me; I'm not making this up; I remember Capote saying it.)

While there's no denying that having children has its inherently grim and serious side, I'm wondering. Why would people (other than gay activists with a vested interest in such nonsense) -- want to increase the grimness factor?

What's with John Gibson's anti-fun procreation not recreation meme?

That's an argument for having babies?

The Gibson link is from Glenn Reynolds, who says:

. . .I think that attitude is part of the problem. (Procreation not recreation? As an old-timer once reportedly said in response to the Make Love, Not War, slogan: "Hell, in my time we did both.")

But Gibson's slogan unwittingly captures an important aspect of the problem, in the United States and other industrial societies, at least: We've taken a lot of the fun out of parenting. Or to echo Longman, the "social costs" of parenting continue to rise, and, more significantly, perhaps, the "social returns" continue to decline.

Parenting was always hard work, of course. But aside from the economic payoffs, parents used to get a lot of social benefits, too. But in recent decades, a collection of parenting "experts" and safety-fascist types have extinguished some of the benefits while raising the costs, to the point where what's amazing isn't that people are having fewer kids, but that people are having kids at all.

When I was a kid, doing things like piling into the back seat of the convertible and going to the drive-in was fun. And by fun I don't mean that it was "innocent" or "wholesome" or any of the code word drivel. People had fun without even realizing how much fun they were having. This was in the days when people were cool without knowing it. When rebellion was innocent without knowing it. Before fun was illegal. Before coolness and rebellion became calculated political postures. Before "deadbeat dads" replaced dangerous criminals on the post office walls.

The things that used to be fun are now dangerous. Or anti-family.

Or worse.

If you don't think family values are getting grimmer and grimmer, then read this piece by the Concerned Women for America titled "'Regular guys' becoming sexual predators of children." The piece contends that pornography turns normal fathers into sexual predators:

Experts estimate that 50,000 sexual predators prowl the Internet for children every day. As long as myth trumps truth, the next estimate could be 10 times what it is today. Stopping predators before they ravage our kids and grandkids will be insurmountable.

The easy access to millions of pages of online porn is speeding up the dependence and escalation to harder-core material and more.

...

Not every guy who has sex with a minor is a pedophile. Most aren't. You may need to read that again too.

There is a difference between pedophiles who prefer to have sex with children and child molesters who prefer to have sex with adults but will have sex with a child if the situation presents itself. And it presents itself big time on the Internet.

...

For the child, it couldn't matter less what the clinical definition of his or her molester may be. What should matter to the rest of us is stopping "regular guys" from becoming child molesters.

...

Men and boys: Beware before you click the mouse one more time and take a step closer to becoming one of the bad guys.

Regular guys once read Playboy, right? (Among other things, my father enjoyed the magazine from time to time.)

Wrong!

According to Concerned Women of America even then Playboy was a front for kiddie porn -- its existence made possible only because of the perverted Kinsey Report. Elsewhere CWFA elaborates:

Before Hefner, real men scorned pornography. Real men had relationships with their wives. Even libertarian sex researchers concluded-much to their chagrin-that most men of the 1950s and 1960s actually "saved" themselves for marriage. They considered sex "too precious" to share with anyone but their wives. Premarital sex, they believed, was harmful.

But Playboy made commitment a dirty word. The magazine counseled men to love 'em and leave 'em-fast. It featured cartoons sexualizing children and phony letters from women extolling bizarre sex practices. It belittled marriage and encouraged drug use.

There is no question that children and families are under assault in a variety of ways, not only by government regulations and bureaucratic fiat, but by attitudes like this. The paradox is that the people screaming the loudest about it are making the embattled minority once known as the "regular guy" not want to have anything to do with children. (Either having them, raising them, touching them or helping them if they're lost.)

Nonetheless they're being told to get grimly to work and start making them.

It is not funny that the word "family" has become grim.

Sigh.

(Well, maybe Truman Capote is having the last laugh.)

Whether children and families have become the antithesis of fun (and whether procreation should be the antithetical to recreation), the linkage in the public mind of sex to children has become so inflammatory that normal discussion is inhibited. As a smear tactic, it's the best weapon in the arsenal; I think linking a person or an activity to the sex/children, um, "thing" trumps even the allegation of racism (even though the latter is normally considered the best way to intimidate someone).

This is not to say that normal, rational people will be persuaded that Playboy = pedophilia, simply because some crackpots allege a link. But once an aroma is generated, a little stench always remains, because an aroma is an aroma. Like the imputation of racism, the insinuation of "sex/children | within-5-words" frightens people. If you're playing hardball and you don't like something, throw in racism. And these days, if you're playing super hardball (or if no one is listening to you), you can nuke your opponents with the sex/children smear.

The attempts to link homosexuality (and hence all gay activists and their defenders) to sex/children are so well known as to not require extended comment.

[NOTE: It's worth noting that the homosexual/sex-with-children smear was ramped up not long ago to include all who express "views supporting homosexuality." That's because opinions are generally considered more threatening than conduct.]

Seeing this tactic being used against "regular guys" though, while alarming in itself, should not make people forget an even more ominous misuse -- to shut down unpopular political speech. Politicians who hate bloggers and think they should be shut down or regulated have had a stubborn problem for years. Restricting blogging as a "campaign contribution" did not work. The race card has been tried, and highly respected bloggers have been accused repeatedly of racism. Such efforts are doomed to failure because (at least until the U.S. ratifies the United Nations atrocity discussed here) there is a right under the First Amendment to make even truly and rabidly racist statements. That leaves only the nuclear option: link blogging to sex/children. I have no idea whether the noxious legislation will pass, but if it does, it will be because of the legitimate political fear of being called "soft" on "kiddie porn."

Even the Iranians are smart enough to see how easy it is to manipulate the West by playing the same game. Wanna execute homosexuals? Easy! Just say they were having sex with children and watch Western outrage dissipate. That's because no one wants to be seen as defending an indefensible activity. Whether it is true matters about as much as whether an accused racist really is a racist.

When I was a young and naive lawyer imagining that I might make a difference in this world, one of the most chilling situations I encountered involved a woman in a child custody dispute who alleged her husband had sexually molested the kids. She admitted privately that there was no substance to her allegations, but they were simply a tactic which she "had to" use in order to prevail, and thus, "save" her children from an awful father. I felt sorry for her kids, even though I never met them, because kids have a way of remembering things like what mommy "had to" do to get them away from daddy. This was told to me in confidence, and I was not her attorney. Besides, I was told, "everyone" makes these allegations. "Routinely." Nice system we've got. Anyway, I'm glad I never went into that atrocity we call "family law." It soured me on the legal profession, and on that grim, emotionally charged concept we call "the family." (I can't say it did wonders for me during this same period of my life when my dad told me he was afraid to interact with children, either.)

Is it any wonder that the members of the anti-family clique prefer dogs to children?

Hmmm....

Does that mean they're into bestiality?