Traditionally Horny

The Role of the Reactionary Pervert

Can you be a pervert and a reactionary? A rightwing horndog? Many would say no. Many would say, “Dan, you’re trying to justify your coomer tendencies.” Maybe so. There is some of this in what follows. But I think not only is it possible to be a reactionary pervert, but that such men have unique insight into the problems of our time. Because it is only the Horny Man who can fully grasp the current disorder, the inversion of values that has stolen from us not only such cultural touchstones as the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, but also sports and culture more generally, the wholesome bedrock on which America once stood.

The Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue isn’t just a bit of clickbait I’ve added to this essay, but a true case study in the Ugly Ascension forced upon us. When I was growing up in the 90’s, the Swimsuit Issue was a hotly anticipated event among my young male peers. Before the days of high-speed Internet pornography, pictures of Rebecca Romijn in a flimsy bikini on the beach were as close as respectable middle-class boys could get to the dirty juice of life. In those days, Swimsuit Issue models were selected for their closeness to traditional standards of female beauty: big tits, slim waist, and long legs.

In truth, I always thought those standards were a bit too restrictive, favoring skinner, more muscled-up women than is actually sexually ideal for the average man. That said, the models of yesteryear were much closer to the ideal than those gracing the cover of the Swimsuit Issue today. Transsexuals and Martha Stewart now hold court on the cover of the Swimsuit Issue. While I’m sure there are some men who get very horny for transsexuals and Martha Stewart, this is almost certainly a small minority. Given the choice, most of us would prefer Rebecca Romijn to that kid from Euphoria.

There are many reasons why Rebecca Romijn should return to the cover of the Swimsuit Issue. One such reason is that a healthy society is one that centers and celebrates healthy sexuality. This means traditionally attractive men and women behaving more or less as they should around each other. Of course, the more traditional among us will say there’s nothing wholesome about a “swimsuit issue,” that even the angelic Rebecca Romijn was a cultural misstep, a buxom bridge between the virtuous past and the degenerate present.

Maybe. But I don’t think so. Healthy societies produce healthy models of sexuality, which serve as examples for others to follow. They don’t hide sexuality under a burlap sack until it mutates into something baroque and unseemly. No, they show everyone what positive sexuality looks like: it looks like the gym-built bodies of ancient Rome, Aphrodite emerging from the waves, Marilyn Monroe trying to push down her skirt on a windy street, and even Christina Hendricks sashaying her way through Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce.

What about the men and women who would prefer to look at pictures of that kid from Euphoria? Shouldn’t they, too, have their desires reflected back to them by the mainstream media? To be honest...probably not. A healthy society shouldn’t seek to promote sexualities that will inevitably fail to produce healthy families. That said, let’s not pretend these perverts are going away. They and their desires are here to stay. And this is actually rather lindy. Sexual deviancy (all deviancy) is a part of human life. To seek to eradicate it from society arguably represents a sort of sexual pathology in and of itself. A healthy society is not a society where there is no sexual degeneracy, but one where such desires are regarded as counter-cultural and kept a bit underground.

Trust me: as an artistic pervert who is culturally conservative, I assure you that the best in life is a virtuous society with a degenerate counter-culture. It is from this perverted underground that some of the best art and fashion and even *thinking* will emerge, forged in the crucible of passion and secrecy. That said, the correct ratio between virtue and degeneracy must be preserved. Too much degeneracy and you wind up with Martha Stewart on the cover of Sports Illustrated. And ironically, this victory of the counter-culture over the popular culture robs the counter-culture of its entire allure. If one’s shocking perversions are celebrated by all, they become quite a bit less shocking, if no less grotesque.

Before I leave you, I will provide you with an example that illustrates the whole. Why were swinger parties from the 70’s incredibly hot, but today’s “kink” parties utterly cringe, disgusting even? It’s because the swingers were ordinary men and women rebelling against the dictates of a still somewhat virtuous popular culture. They themselves were often fit and attractive (i.e., the products of a healthy society) and their actions were charged with the erotic energy of the illicit.

The “kinksters” of today are the product of a society that no longer promulgates a traditional conception of virtue. As a result, these young men and women are often unattractive (because society has abandoned traditional standards of beauty) and their parties lack the erotic charge of the swingers’ parties of yore. Leather and whips and all manner of industrial vibrators cannot replace the allure of attractive people doing naughty things. And in a society where nothing is naughty, nothing is hot. No one wants to attend an orgy sponsored by Citibank.

But Citibank sponsoring orgies has knock-on effects. The full-throated mainstream embrace of degeneracy in all its forms leaves us with a society that is inhospitable to honest virtue but incapable of producing attractive vice. The end of the party is not a pretty sight.