This month, Hello Fresh ran a Pride-themed ad campaign that seems far removed from the assurances many Americans heard during the same-sex marriage debate. Remember? “My marriage won’t affect your marriage.” “What consenting adults do in private is none of anyone’s business.”
Many voters who supported same-sex marriage believed these assurances, understanding it as a request for legal recognition, not the beginning of a broader cultural project that would eventually permeate corporate branding, workplace policies, schools, and popular culture.
Ordinary moms and grandmas just wanted their gay relatives to be happy. They were assured that redefining marriage would be harmless.
But here we are, almost exactly 11 years since the Obergefell decision, and the most popular meal-kit delivery service in the country has brought gay sex out of the bedroom and right to the kitchen table.
‘Bottoms up’
Now, I don’t want to write about this any more than you want to read about it. But the unfortunate truth is that we can’t afford to ignore it, no matter how distasteful we find it. Because if you and I won’t talk about these things on our terms, be assured, the sexual revolutionaries will talk about them on theirs.
So here is the ad Hello Fresh posted on Instagram: “We know eating isn’t always a top priority this month. We respect that. But for those of you who are … prepping … we have an extensive lineup of high-fiber recipes available. Happy Pride.”
Perhaps you are unfamiliar with the term “prepping.” In Megan Basham’s delicate translation: “For those not initiated into the sexual practices of gay men, let me help decipher what ‘prepping’ means. HelloFresh is saying that their product is useful for clearing out the rectum of feces in preparation for sodomy. Yes, that’s what it means.”
The company later added a discount code: BOTTOMS UP.
This tasteless Hello Fresh “Pride Month” campaign delivers your food with a side dish of unappetizing sexual innuendo, whether you ordered it or not.
Hardly harmless
What ever happened to that “gay marriage” deal about the privacy of the bedroom? Many people accepted that bargain in good faith. Ordinary moms and grandmas just wanted their gay relatives to be happy. They were assured that redefining marriage would be harmless.
I was a campaign spokeswoman for Proposition 8 in California, the ballot initiative that defined marriage as the union of one man and one woman. I was involved in the marriage debates from Prop 8 in 2008 all the way to 2015 and the Obergefell decision. I distinctly remember that many leaders of the pro-marriage effort made a conscious decision not to talk about gay sex.
“The gay marriage campaign is not about ‘gay.’ It’s about ‘marriage.’” This strategy suited a lot of us, including me. We didn’t want to talk about gay stuff at all, much less gay sex.
We wanted to talk about the meaning and purposes of marriage, how marriage attaches mothers and fathers to their children and to one another. We wanted to talk about how redefining marriage would inevitably redefine parenthood.
We feared that mentioning gay sex would gross people out. We didn’t want to offend the good, decent people who don’t want to talk about any sex in public, much less gay sex. We figured the first side to bring it up would lose.
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Sanitizing sodomy
But there was a downside to this strategy. It allowed the gay lobby to sanitize the sexual activities of two men. The public was never asked to think about what gay men actually do together. Grandma could picture her grandson cuddling on the sofa with his boyfriend, listening to showtunes.
I recall giving a talk at Stanford. In response to a question about “marriage equality,” I asked the student, “Is there any sexual act that would equally consummate the marriage of a male couple and a female couple and a man-woman couple?”
The student thought for a minute. This was a new thought for her. She probably couldn’t imagine anyone getting married who hadn’t already performed the act that normally consummates a marriage, long before they walked down the aisle.
She finally said, “Well, marriage doesn’t necessarily have to be a sexual relationship.” This is a tacit admission that there is no “equal” way of consummating these “marriages.”
Intrinsically sterile
Maybe avoiding “gay” was a good tactic at the time. But the marketing geniuses at Hello Fresh broke the tacit deal: What happens in the bedroom doesn’t stay in the bedroom. It was wishful thinking to believe that it would.
Decent people prefer to keep a discreet lid on discussions of sex. Unfortunately, the sexual revolutionaries — be they gay, straight, nonbinary, or whatever — can’t shut up about it.
The marital act between a man and a woman can bring forth new human life. The combination of oxytocin and vasopressin during sex creates bonds between the man and the woman.
Neither babies nor bonding are part of the gay sex equation. Gay sex is intrinsically sterile. Gay sex is gross.
There: I said it.
But don’t forget who brought it up first.
Culture, Gay marriage, Lifestyle, Marriage debates, Obergefell decision, Parenthood, Proposition 8, Obergefell v. hodges, Family, Lgbt, Countering ‘pride’
