A quick follow-up to what I posted last evening about the Rekers story: Anderson Cooper did, indeed, do a segment on Rekers last night at his CNN 360 show. In the clip, Randi Kaye interviews Jo-Vanni Roman, who confirms that his contract with Rekers as they traveled in Europe specified that he provide daily massasges for at least an hour in their shared room. Roman characterizes the massages as “sexual massages.”
As Roman tells Randi Kaye, Rekers, of course, did not want Roman divulging information about the massages. And he denies that any sexual behavior took place.
Rachel Maddow also did a first-rate story last night about Rekers and his rentboy scandal. As she notes, everything in this story would be Rekers’ and Roman’s private business, were it not for for one glaring, salient fact: Rekers has worked long and hard, and continues working right up to the present, to make the lives of every gay and lesbian person in the United States as miserable as possible. In the name of God. And rather than demonstrate remorse for this now that he’s been caught out, he tries to claim moral high ground and threaten suit to those who have exposed him.
Maddow’s conclusion is powerful. Addressing those who preach against gay lives and gay families while engaging in gay behavior on the down-low, she advises:
Maddow’s conclusion is powerful. Addressing those who preach against gay lives and gay families while engaging in gay behavior on the down-low, she advises:
The miserable denying and lying in your own sex lives is your own miserable in-denial lying business. Unless you make it the whole country’s business, by crusading against the thing that is true about yourself that you hate so much. Being gay cannot be cured. Being a contemptible, pathetic hypocrite can be cured. Come out, come out, wherever you are.
In a more humorous vein, Craig Ferguson also addresses the Rekers story at David Letterman’s late-night show, reaching a conclusion similar to Maddow’s:
If you’re really, really anti-gay and you run an organization that’s really anti-gay and you really don’t like gay people and you want to stop them doing stuff, you’re probably gay. So, just knock it off, and get yourself something fabulous. And then you’ll be good!
As a blogger with the username bettenoir notes at an Alternet piece about Rekers’ baggage yesterday,
Rekers is an old hand at his chosen lifestyle, though, and immediately flew into damage control mode . . . which makes for entertaining reading because Rekers is no ordinary closet-case; this Extreme Gay Makeover has constructed his entire life around secretly embracing and publicly denying his gender identity. Every waking minute of Rekers day is spent on some aspect of homosexuality. He has two websites dedicated to counseling teenagers who are troubled by gender identity issues – one is called “Professor George” (gimme a break) and the other is called TeenSexToday.com that promises that readers who submit questions can “count on me to be logical, ethical, and scientific in my answers.” Right. This is Rekers’ favorite subject and favorite age group – color me cynical but this is just a front for a cyber-peeping Tom.
Bettenoir notes that Rekers has made a lucrative cottage industry out of gay-bashing, while . . . well, in at least one widely publicized case, taking a young gay male prostitute on an expensive European vacation with the money he earned from his dirty work.
As Aristotle observed centuries ago, the sudden fall of a virtuous person ensnared by unforeseen fate or by limited perspective produces pathos. But the spectacular downfall of scoundrels who have paved the way to their unfortunate end with lies, hypocrisy, and cruelty fails to evoke sympathy.
Instead, it confirms our sense of poetic justice which hopes to see good people flourish and unsavory ones exposed, even when such justice occurs all too infrequently in the real world in which we live, where power and money and the lies that powerful money can buy usually carry the day.
As Aristotle observed centuries ago, the sudden fall of a virtuous person ensnared by unforeseen fate or by limited perspective produces pathos. But the spectacular downfall of scoundrels who have paved the way to their unfortunate end with lies, hypocrisy, and cruelty fails to evoke sympathy.
Instead, it confirms our sense of poetic justice which hopes to see good people flourish and unsavory ones exposed, even when such justice occurs all too infrequently in the real world in which we live, where power and money and the lies that powerful money can buy usually carry the day.
The graphic for this posting is a photograph of artist Tania Bruguera's "Poetic Justice" (2003), from Chicago's Rhona Hoffman gallery.