Cowards and Victims

A few years ago, I read an interview with Linda Lovelace about her autobiography where she claims her husband forced her to perform sex acts at the point of a gun. This is a very different tale than the one she told when she was riding the talk show circuit wave in the wake of her debut film, Deep Throat. She was certainly cashing in on that success. I remember her telling Merv Griffin and Dick Cavett, among other talk show hosts, how she learned to do the deep throat and how much she enjoyed not only performing in the movie but the adulation and acclaim from her 15 minutes of stardom. When she couldn't sustain her acting career and no one cared about her or knew who she was any more, she made her claims of sexual abuse and harassment, even though she divorced the man who made her famous as soon as she got the money in her hot little hands.

I have little patience and no sympathy for cowards and victims. They sing one song when they're on top and another when the spotlight moves to someone else, anything to stay in the limelight. And it's not just celebrities or celebrity-wannabes. People want to be victims, to be seen as sinned against rather than sinning. Give me an unrepentant sinner every time. At least I know I can count on what they say and believe them. I certainly don't believe the victims and cowards. They remind me of what Judge Roy Bean said, that there is none so righteous as a redeemed sinner. Of course, he was talking about soiled doves who married and became ultra respectable to the point of obsession and mania. He knew what he was talking about because he saw it happen when his little town went respectable and all the saloon trollops and bawdy house whores turned on trollops and whores when they became respectable. It is said that hell hath no fury like a woman scored, but she has nothing on the repentant, reborn, sinner who has seen the light. Those kinds of people never learned about moderation or about honesty, but they sure know how to keep the spotlight on them even if it means denouncing who they were and what they once espoused with their whole being. Just like Linda Lovelace and countless others in the not so public eye who justify their past by denouncing who and what they were and why they did the things they did. After all, the public loves self flagellation no matter how they cringe at the act, as long as it isn't themselves they are flagellating.

Were you a thief who became a security consultant? There is no one more adept at catching a thief than a thief because they think alike, but don't get too close or the reformed thief's zealotry for protecting people will make you ill from the sugar shock or drown you in their crocodile tears of remorse. Do you constantly remind your spouse of their one-time infidelity and play the heartbroken and disappointed victim when you come back from a rendezvous with your second or third lover this year? After all, if you don't get caught then you aren't an adulterer. Did you hate and fear your spouse when they were alive, but now that they're dead do you loudly and publicly mourn them on the anniversary of their death? Don't forget to keep the hankies handy. Or how about anonymously stabbing someone in the back and playing the concerned friend when you'd rather see them broke, unhappy, unsuccessful, and alone -- or bet yet, dead?

There is nothing wrong with taking a different path in life, but at least own up to your previous life and how much you enjoyed stealing, sleeping around, or reveling in someone's downfall. It's a whole lot more honest and less cowardly. I know it is more fun to play the victim with people rushing around doing their best to comfort and support you, to forget about whatever is going on in their own lives to focus on you. It's not honest, but it has become the national past time. Everyone wants to be a victim -- well, not everyone, just the cowards.

Yes, give me an unrepentant sinner every time. At least he's honest.

That's all. Disperse.