When they told me this was to be the friends and family issue, I thought, “Great. This’ll be an easy one. Family issues are everywhere. No social unit is more interpersonally inept than the family.” Then I was told I could max out at 450 words. Could? Could? Like it’s some sort of privilege? I can’t write an introductory paragraph in 450 words, much less a coherent magazine article. But in order to understand the thinking, you must understand editors, which involves flipping the cerebral switch to a more reptilian mode. Then you have to learn to move around on your belly. It isn’t pretty. Family Day, Family-friendly, for the whole Family, the American Family Council, Family restaurants, the Family vacation, Focus on the Family – do you think maybe the word is used just a wee bit too much to be genuine? Don’t you sense a measure of phoniness whenever someone starts yammering about “the family?” I think everybody does, but they intentionally ignore it in an “Emperor’s New Clothes”-like way. In fact, I bet everyone knows – deep down – that families are completely screwed up. But it’s not socially acceptable to speak the truth in twenty-first century America, so they lie. It’s evident that they’re lying by how often and with how much false reverence and disingenuous joy they discuss “the family.” Remember Shakespeare? Remember, “Methinks thou doest protesteth too much?” Families provide the manure in which bullshit thrives. They’re the psychosocial breeding ground wherein lies, manipulations, deceits and hostilities reside. They’re an incubator for human pathologies, from jealousies to abuses to assaults to grudges to downright hatred. Yet they’re held up as an ideal. A building block of society. An institution. There’s a reason for that, of course: All the neuroses passed around within families would land anyone in an institution. It’s where irrational fears are spread. It’s where mythologies are perpetuated. It’s where comments like, “We’re not coming for Thanksgiving if Harold and Eileen are going to be there” are rationalized. It’s where proclamations such as, “Tyler, you need to get your 16 year-old self the hell out of the house because you like other boys” are justified.
8 | LasVegasGayNews.com