A much-publicised trial in Falun, Sweden is giving me a funny feeling. The man on the stand has confessed to the murder of a woman and a small girl, and is also charged with the violent rape of both and of a second woman. The case makes me feel queasy in more ways than one.
Anybody half sane will of course feel incomprehending revulsion when faced with the fact of men with the drive to beat, rape and murder. But there’s something more to it for me. And I think I know what it is. This insane sadistic sex murderer was just following his strongest urges. And so have I done for all my adult life.
I’ll make no bones about it: since my lower teens, I have had a strong irrational urge to have hot, tender, consensual sex with women, preferably several times a week. This has been an important factor in the style of both of my marriages, and the ladies in question will be able to testify that I am indeed quite possessed by that urge. [Comments indicate that I should clarify that what I am confessing to here is randiness, not promiscuity.] In the interval between my marriages, I did little but pursue the fulfilment of my inclinations, and they led me to perform remarkably silly stunts for someone who calls himself a rationalist.
As luck has it, my urges are socially acceptable. Indeed, a number of people even seem to have found them charming. But the thing is, I didn’t choose my orientation. I just did whatever felt right. And so, when I read about the crimes of this unfeeling, twisted child-killer, I feel sick to the stomach. Because the main reason that I’m not committing rape and murder is that I have no inclination to do so. I don’t know if I would have been able to abstain if I had been built the same way as him.
