The Saddest Man in the World

Hi Readers,

It's been a long time since I updated this page. All I can say by way of apology is that I've been incredibly lazy and indulging in displacement activity. On a positive note, my high scores on Tetris have gone through the roof.

This post is a celebration of The Saddest Man in the World. This post is a celebration of the incrediblly small-minded Mr Jack Martin from Dallas, Texas.

To provide a little background information, Jim Trulock and Julie Norris are Dallas Swingers. This is their website: http://www.cherrypit.org/. Jim and Julie host swinging parties and have hosted them for several years. Over the past year complaints have been filed with the police and now the couple are fighting the law. They are fighting for their right to live the lifestyle they want, content to keep their swinging restricted behind the closed doors of their own home and enjoying the pleasures that come from consensual adult fun.

Jack Martin is one of their neighbours. His quote on the situation earns him my nomination for being The Saddest Man in the World. "It's immoral. Would you want someone living next to you who was a pedophile if you have a bunch of kids? It's on the same line. The frame of mind is the same. The end result is the same: sex."

The logic here is worth investigating. His first sentence, "That's immoral," is something of a judgement call and we have to let that one go. Moralities are subjective and Mr Martin is perfectly entitled to believe what is and isn't moral.

But it's the rhetorical question that comes next that's worth looking at more closely. "Would you want someone living next to you who was a pedophile if you have a bunch of kids?"

I appreciate this is a rhetorical question, and therefore doesn't require a response: but it needs one.

No, Mr Martin, I would not want someone living next door to me if they were a pedophile and I had a bunch of kids. I would prefer to live somewhere where pedophiles are arrested and incarcerated; somewhere where the police have the time and resources to track down those pedophiles, rather than wasting their resources prosecuting partygoers.

In short, I would prefer to live somewhere where my neighbours have sufficient intellect to know that a bunch of kids is called "a family," and I would prefer to live close to neighbours who can differentiate between sex crimes and consensual sex.

Mr Martin then says, "It's on the same line."

I have to point out that it is not on the same line. Mr Martin lives near some swingers who host parties. He is a 74 year old retiree. Swingers go to their party and enjoy themselves. Mr Martin then complains to the police about the immorality of their doings. I'm not quite sure how this is on the same line as pedophillia. Unless the swingers are arriving at the party, armed with balloons and sweeties which they intend to use as a lure for Mr Martin, this situation is not remotely on the same line as living next door to a pedophile.

Mr Martin concludes his rhetorical uses of tripartite syntactic repitition with the sentence, "The end result is the same: sex."

Well, again, we'd have to point out that the end result of pedophilia is obscene and criminal and involves an egregious lack of consent. This is hardly the same as a party of swingers finishing the night by swapping phone numbers and promising to meet up next week.

The full article is available from Newsweek on: http://www.newsweek.com/id/78032. But it makes for bleak reading.

It's sad that people have to fight for their right to live their own lives behind closed doors. It's even sadder that people like Mr Martin are in a position to make their lives miserable. However, the saddest thing of all is that MrMartin is clearly an individual who believes that every pleasurable sex act is akin to pedophillia.

That sort of mentality is truly, truly sad.