I know, I know, true confessions are always hard. (No, seriously!) Before I go any further, let me just thank the "right wing hordes" in the blogosphere who have been gracious enough to acknowlege that having been a gay porn star is not necessarily a prohibition against supporting the war, being a Ronald Reagan Republican, or even going to CPAC and shaking hands with Ann Coulter. (Glenn Reynolds, Jeff Goldstein, Pajamas Media, Gay Patriot, Michelle Malkin, John Hawkins, and many others have all contributed to a climate which has made my, um, confession possible.)

OK, my confession is going to be a little complicated, because maybe I wasn't a gay porn star. Maybe not exactly. But then, maybe there were times when I might as well have been. (And "might as well" counts, doesn't it?) And much as I like to think that whatever the hell I did when I was young (and thus still considered "worthy") might not matter to anyone, I see that it very much matters if you take a political position that former gay porn stars aren't supposed to take.

Seriously, while outing gay Republicans has become a traditional leftist value, this smear job is one of the most vicious attacks I've seen. [Yeah, be warned. It has dirty pictures, which means you're a hypocrite if you look while Republican.] It has been linked by top outing practictioner John Aravosis, and numerous other prominent leftie blogs; even Atrios has given it his official seal of approval, so this smear cannot be dismissed as the work of an anonymous gay axe grinder.

Geez, this is getting so tired that I don't know where to begin. Yet another conservative outed -- this time as a former gay porn star. How does that mean he's not allowed to support the war, or shake hands with Ann Coulter?

While this is not a new topic for me by a long shot, I do have some new suggestions on ways to deal with it. But before reading anything else, I suggest reading Matt Sanchez's side of the story which appears at Salon.com. He also has a great blog, and just today he pointed out that there's already a Wikipedia article about him.

Corporal Sanchez also linked David Horowitz (whom Sanchez humorously calls "another conservative abandoning me"). Here's the Horowitz "abandonment":

I find it appalling that people who actually call themselves Progressives would attack an Hispanic American and accuse him of being an exploited minority because he chose to serve his country. I find it appalling that gay leftists - who otherwise think Bush is destroying the constitution by tapping the phones of our terrorist enemies - would open an American citizen's buried past and make it public in an attempt to destroy him. But I'm not surprised. That's what the Left does. All day and every day. It's for the cause.

As to how "the cause" works, Jeff Goldstein explains the principle pretty well. But first, here's Jeff's reaction to the "Bacchus" post with the dirty pictures:

It's surreal. The hatred in that post. The vileness of the language. The attempt to shock.

And yet, the beautiful irony is, nobody here really gives a flying fuck. Just like with Gannon.

Why? Because the caricature [Bacchus] has been nurturing in his smudged soul about the "reichwingers" is a sham--a tool to fuel his victim status and to give him license for his "angry queer" persona.

Real "reich"wingers turned people like him into fucking ashtrays. Good thing none of them are alive, or they'd probably bitch slap this snarling little gossip with a copy of Mein Kampf.

....once we eschew the inevitable equivalency arguments that touch on matters of style, it is clear that, on the substance, Bacchus' message is one of pure identitarian hate. In Matt Sanchez, we have a conservative who, from the perspective of his earlier libertine attitudes toward sex and sexual orientation*, wandered off the "progressive" plantation, and so, to people like Bacchus, must be exposed, mocked, and MADE TO PAY for his ideological transgressions, the undisguised subtext being that the political positions of gay men must necessarily be tied to that of the collective, which not only presumes to speak for them, but which, it is clear, is willing to police its ranks by engaging, in the most vicious ways, in behaviors it claims ostensibly to find anathema--namely, reducing a person to his sexual orientation (the game of "outing") in order to undermine his positions (which has the net effect of arguing that your only value as a homosexual is tied inexorably to what you are willing to do for the orthodoxy's conception of "the cause"; your individualism, that is, is ironically only granted you should you willingly surrender it to the Greater Good).

In what will go down as one of history's great ironies, in enlightened, modern America, there are still people engaged in exposing and persecuting homosexuals working in the government or in important positions, and they are activists in the Democratic Party. (Michael Rogers and John Aravosis are two notorious, longtime practitioners, and the latter was recently invited to lunch with Bill Clinton.)

The difference is that the Democrats doing the persecution today can't fire gay Republicans directly; instead they are tracking them down and exposing them in the hope that the Republicans will be bigoted enough to fire them. Unfortunately, this has failed. Even Rick Santorum, supposedly the worst gay basher of the lot, refused to fire his gay aide after the man was outed.

What this has created is a huge (if ironic) double standard between the parties. Gay Democrats have a right to their privacy, but gay Republicans are hounded and live in fear of the new (Democratic) sexual McCarthyism.

The reason they are made to live in fear while their Democrat counterparts are not is because gay Republicans are said to be self hating hypocrites. According to this argument, because the Republican Party does not support same sex marriage, any gay Republican is by definition betraying himself -- even if he disagrees with the Republican Party on that issue. For that, it is fair to invade his privacy and make his identity and sexuality known to the world, in the hope that he'll be fired by bigoted Republicans.

The right-wing has gobbled this porn hunk up with a spoon, never knowing that tons of men have gobbled up his monster cock ON FILM. I love it, I love it, I love it.

I think this is an attempt at sleight of hand, and it is accomplished by starting with a false claim of hypocrisy, which is then projected. The logic is intended to work this way:

all gays or porn stars who are conservative become hypocrites.

All conservatives who have been in contact with them are hypocrites by association.

This, of course, puts conservatives in an impossible position, because they can't win no matter what. If a gay porn star working for conservatives is outed and then fired, why they're bigots! But if they just don't care (or if they follow some old fashioned Christian notion of forgiving past transgressions), why, they're hypocrites, because they are supposed to live up to standards set by the left. [In other words, you're a hypocrite if you dare to tolerate whoever we decide you're not allowed to tolerate!]

In its sheer arrogance, it's remarkable. How long this will go on, I don't know.

Yesterday I complained about the repetitious nature of blogging, and I know I am repeating myself. So I'd like to switch gears a little, and instead of just repeating myself, I'd like to propose something new.

Let's return to the title of this post:

"I WAS A GAY PORN STAR!"

Instead of lying down and taking it, is it too much to ask that conservatives, and libertarians, and all fair-minded people, start being proactive, and preemptive, and just out themselves as former gay porn stars? I know it sounds outrageous , but if you think about this logically, if we're all gay porn stars, they won't be able to use this tactic anymore.

Granted, this is not a new technique, and we've all heard about the King of Denmark and the yellow stars. I'm not suggesting wearing pink triangles or anything like that, nor do I mean to compare porn stars to Jews or Republicans to Danish kings.

But I like the idea of preemption. Hell, you don't have to be gay, and if you're uncomfortable with that, just say you're a former porn star. (If you think about it hard, admitting you're a porn star will do wonders for your self esteem -- especially if you've gotten old and less than sexually attractive.) I suppose if you're a woman you could also say "I WAS A LESBIAN PORN STAR!" and while it's a different rant, I see no reason why a man couldn't say that too.

Those who insist on combining preemption with redemption could even say "I AM AN EX GAY PORN STAR!" although I don't recommend it. Might bring on too many thought gestapos police all at the same time.

Which brings me to the Hitler meme. I just struck the "gestapo" reference but I left my mistake there to illustrate how easy it is to fall into the trap of violating Godwin's Law.

I'm not advocating violating Godwin's Law here; far from it!

What I am talking about would best be called Inverted Preemptive Godwin's Law, and I will explain how it works.

It is now a well settled principle that in the future, everyone will get to be Hitler for fifteen minutes. With that in mind, here's a simple logical question:

Can any rational person say that it is worse to be a porn star (gay, straight, or bi) than to be Hitler?

I thought not.

So, once we can accept that porn stars are not comparable to Hitler, and that we're all destined to be Hitler for fifteen minutes, it necessarily follows that saying you were once a porn star is a mere trifle.

Furthermore, considering today's rapidly evolving technology, declaring yourself to be a former gay porn star now, before you're outed, might be a very smart move. As we've been seeing for years, anyone can airbrush a Hitler moustache onto anyone. But no one is really fooled by this, for we all know that there was only one Hitler. Pornography, though, is another matter. Anyone can be Photoshopped into the raunchiest of porn, and it's a lot tougher to deny that you're in a picture you appear to be in than it is to deny being Hitler.

So my suggestion for everyone is to get it over with now, while you still can. Just choose one or more of the following:

"I WAS A GAY PORN STAR!"

"I WAS A LESBIAN PORN STAR!"

"I WAS A BI PORN STAR!"

"I WAS A STRAIGHT PORN STAR!"

"I WAS A PORN STAR!"

Yeah, you could always say "I AM" and then add an "ex" but I didn't want to be too busily redundant, and besides, "X" is already associated with porn, so the sound of "ex" might be confusing.

For those who either can't stand having to make such a damaging admission or think it's just plain dishonest, you could always join the gay porn star solidarity committee:

"I SHOULD HAVE BEEN A GAY PORN STAR!"

or

"I WAS TOO UGLY TO BE A GAY PORN STAR!"

or

"I WAS TOO NERDY TO BE A GAY PORN STAR!"

or

"IT WAS AGAINST MY RELIGION TO BE A GAY PORN STAR!"

or

"I WAS TOO STRAIGHT TO BE A GAY PORN STAR!"

or even

"I HAD SO MUCH MONEY THAT I DIDN'T NEED TO BE A GAY PORN STAR!"

I'm sure I missed some group or another.

(And of course I may yet be accused of an unnatural perversion of Godwin's Law, but still think it beats having to be Hitler.)

AFTERTHOUGHT: If implemented properly, I think the above will put the left on the defensive, and they'd resort to predictably lame responses like these:

"I USED TO BE A GAY PORN STAR, BUT NOW I'M A SELF-HATING HYPOCRITE!"

or

"I USED TO BE A SELF-HATING HYPOCRITE, BUT NOW I'M A GAY PORN STAR!"

What? Do I have to do their homowork for them? (Sorry about that last typo. Do I have to correct everything?)

UPDATE: In what is probably an omen of something, my activity log now shows that by the mere act of publishing this post, I have repeatedly committed the following crime against error:

"Your ping could not be submitted due to questionable content: PORN"

This was not PORN!

Sigh.

I'm reminding myself of the lyrics to a song:

"I'm just a soul whose intentions are good

Oh Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood"

UPDATE: Sean Kinsell links this post, and adds some very wise observations, including this:

we can have all sorts of self-righteous fun by pointing out that the way someone lives now conflicts with the way he lived years ago. After all, no one ever sincerely changes his mind about important issues as he ages. Especially not in a free society where we all have access to lots of information and are taught to think for ourselves.