I'm sure most of you have heard, but Canada recently made same sex marriages legal. In the last few months, I have heard astonishing amounts of people saying that this is wrong (morally and religiously are the two most common arguments). Obviously, they're all entitled to their opinion. However, I'm entitled to mine, which is: If two people, who both understand what they're agreeing to, without hurting anyone else, agree on ANY sort of sexuality... who are the rest of us to argue?

To clarify: They must be able to make their own descisions. In Canada, for instance, the age of consent is 18, and past that point, they can marry a 100 year old legally. There is also some limited consent allowed between the ages of 14 and 18. (I'm not going to get into any debates about this, whether the age of consent should be lowered, or raised, or whether there should be any other limitations, or anything like that. Let's just accept the established laws for the course of this rant, for the sake of making life easier. Let's also just limit things to one country, because multiple countries would make life difficult, and I don't know consent laws in any other countries.)

We've established that the age of consent in Canada is 18. Now, past that age, further limitations. Are they able to understand everything being suggested? Getting someone who only speaks, say, Swahili or, for instance, talks to themselves, to say "yes" after you ask a question will not stand up in court. However, if they understand, and are competent to make their own descisions legally (Another debate I'll table and just accept current laws) then almost anything they'd like to do in bed is legal. Everything from missionary style to S&M to group orgies and everything in between is accepted. People say "Eh, whatever".

My question is, why is it certain other things that do no harm to society, and less harm to the two participants than other accepted relations (IE heavy-duty whips-and-chains S&M) get people up in arms? I'm going to specifically discuss homosexuality here, for two main reasons: its the most common of the taboos, and the easiest to notice in public, except exhibitionism. There are, however, several other things that people freak out about. If you want to find out what I'm talking about, watch a few episodes of Jerry Springer... between the episode about the Klan and the episode about "You slept with my mother" you'll probably find a "I like to wear/use/do it with _________". In that episode, you'll probably have someone stand up and say something along the lines of "you're evil". They might say something about going to hell if they're religious. Then someone else will say "Why don't you just stop? It's not that hard."

Well, first of all, a mental addiction (mental as in mind, not mental as in insane) is more addictive than any drug on the street. You nerds out there. Why don't you just stop using your computer? It's not hard. You sports fans out there. Why don't you just stop watching hockey/baseball/football/whatever? It's not hard. You book lovers out there. Why don't you just stop going to the library? It's not hard. WRONG! It might be easy for other people, but you know that you have some thing you enjoy, wheter it be something I just mentioned, or something else. I might find it easy to give up, but how easy would you find it?

The lesson: Something that you really enjoy doing is hard to break yourself of. And what gives the most amount of pleasure to a human mind/body? I'll give you a hint. It's an evoulutionary thing, designed to make us want to procreate. Three letters. It starts with S, has a E in the middle, and rounds out with an X. That's right, SEX. Bing bing bing bing!!! Conratulations, you've won the microwave. Would you like to try for the patio furniture? Let's also mention that it needn't be actual sex, sexual stimulation comes in many degrees and flavors, and all of them have varying degrees of addictiveness. (If you don't agree that sexual stimulation without sex is possible, go look at a porno, keep your hands still, and see if you get any thrill from it.)

So, where are we at right now? We've established that the law permits any two (or more) consenting adults to legally do whatever they want to sexually, as long as none of the participants is severely hurt, and no one else is hurt at all, and no public property (or other peoples' private property) is damaged. We've also established that sex is a cruel mistress, and whatever you learn to associate with sex will be difficult if not impossible to break yourself of.

So, why does the public at large spend so much energy making people feel guilty for their sexuality? Answer one: God. Ahh, yes, the answer to everything. Yet another debate I'm not going into here is whether God exists, and if so, which religion has His one true phone number. However, in most religions, isn't there something in there that says "free choice"? If so, how can you say "You can't do that." Pick one. Do you have free choice or don't you? If you do, then you cannot tell people not to do something, or else you're going to piss off The Big Guy. If you DON'T, then God made them that way, and it would be really unfair of Him to punish them for something that He made them do. Either way, YOU have no right to judge other people. Whether or not God does is another one I won't touch. And yet, many uptight people refuse to give gay people the simple respect that they'd give anyone. Really REALLY uptight people go around in bashing clubs and "roll a fag" (street talk for "beat the livin' shit out of them"). Again, what gives them the right?

I'm a manager at a fast food restaurant, and recently two gay guys came in to eat. My cashier wanted to tell them "You can't eat here". I told him that if he did that to not let the doorknob hit him (I didn't want to have to wash off the door.) Yet, I know a lot of people who would agree with him. If anyone were to say "You can't eat here because you're black" people would have a fit. "You can't eat here because you're a woman", you'd get drawn and quartered. But, say "You can't eat here because you're gay" and half the people around will cheer you on. What gives??? How does what they like to do make them any less deserving of respect? How does it make them any less of a human??

Answer two for why people get uptight: They're afraid that they're going to get hit on. Putting aside the smartass answer of "Afraid you might like it?" there's one big reason why this (to me) doesn't make sense. If a woman, that you don't want to go out with, hit on you, would you take it as an insult or a compliment? If you said insult, you've got some issues. So, why should it be any different if a man (that you wouldn't go out with) hit on you? Just say "no thanks" and move on. If you say no, they probably won't bug you again, and if they do, then you can call the police for harrasment. This also applies to fetishes and stuff like that as well. People, generally speaking, accept "no" except for a few sociopath rapists.

I can't really think of any other excuses for discriminating against people for their sexual preferences, but I'm really liberal, and don't discriminate against anyone for any reason (except willful stupidity), so if anyone else has a valid explanation, I'd be interested to hear it.

So, lets wrap this up; here's my take: You go do whatever you want to when it comes to sex. I won't say a word. As a matter of fact, if you want to do something involving me, I'll listen long enough to find out just what you want to do. However, if I say no, then NO MEANS NO.

... But that's just me talking.