When Even Your Jokes Predict the Future

Well friends, it’s been often said that authors, poets, musicians, and other artists are ahead of the curve and see things before everyone else does. I’d like to point out this admittedly hilarious joke I sent out into the World Wide Web back on March 2:

Gen Z’s grandkids gonna rebel by coming out as straight. pic.twitter.com/Ji2j3Bhzjx

— Alexander Hellene (@AHelleneAuthor) March 2, 2021

Classic Alex: gently mocking while being so absurd you can’t imagine anybody actually getting offended, except of course people did because this is 21st century America.

Anyway, he might not be Gen Z, and he might not be rebelling against his grandparents, but look at what happened yesterday, March 9:

March 9, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) — Milo Yiannopoulos, the gay man whose conservative messaging and willingness to speak the truth sparked riots on university campuses may well trigger more outrage now that he describes himself as “Ex-Gay” and “sodomy free,” and is leading a daily consecration to St. Joseph online.

Two years ago, when Church Militant’s Michael Voris famously challenged Yiannopoulos to live a chaste life, Yiannopoulos was not defensive. Instead, he acquiesced, and humbly admitted his human weakness.

“I know everything you’re saying, and I’m just not there yet. And I don’t know if I’ll get there,” Yiannopoulos told Voris at the time.

It seems that he has now arrived “there.”

LifeSite: I imagine that to many who follow you, your recent decision to publicly identify as “Milo, Ex-Gay” may seem like a 180-degree turn. Are you also surprised that your life has taken this turn? Or is it unsurprising, a natural and perhaps inevitable progression in your life? I ask this because over the last few years things that you’ve said have hinted at being drawn in this direction.

Milo: When I used to kid that I only became gay to torment my mother, I wasn’t entirely joking. Of course, I was never wholly at home in the gay lifestyle — Who is? Who could be? — and only leaned heavily into it in public because it drove liberals crazy to see a handsome, charismatic, intelligent gay man riotously celebrating conservative principles.

That’s not to say I didn’t throw myself enthusiastically into degeneracy of all kinds in my private life. I suppose I felt that’s all I deserved. I’d love to say it was all an act, and I’ve been straight this whole time, but even I don’t have that kind of commitment to performance art. Talk about method acting …

Huh. Interesting!

Naturally, all the right people are losing their minds over this, probably more so due to Yiannopoulos’s Christian faith than his heterosexuality, but I’m sure that doesn’t help either.

This is the world we live in, where the word and the very idea behind “normal” is under attack as unfair or whatever. Being straight is normal. This is one reason why it will not do.

I mean, good for Milo. I buy this as genuine and not a grift for a few reasons, but maybe it is just for attention though. Who knows? Some thoughts:

Is this any different than actresses who come out as “bi” or “non-binary” or whatever?I’ve known individuals who wished they weren’t gay. Maybe some people can actually change this aspect of their lives? If one can be a woman trapped in a man’s body, can’t they be a straight man trapped in a gay man’s body?Love is love.Milo was just born this way.Sexuality is fluid.Sexuality is a social construct.Why should he be judged by whom he sleeps with?What Milo does in the privacy of his home is his own business.Hate has no home on this website.

To put a finer point on it: the fact that sexuality and sex is basically all that seems to matter in America, and that you can get fired, I mean canceled, for being in sufficiently enthusiastic about certain lifestyle choices sure says a lot. But this is the world we live in.

So coming out as straight is super-edgy and will probably end Milo’s career. Oh wait, he’s already been canceled. So why are all the people talking about someone so irrelevant if he’s so irrelevant?

That’s not a rhetorical question, but it does involve rhetoric. Because this hurts the Narrative. So there you go.

Now for the second part:

“What does this have to do with books and writing?” you may be asking. I’ll tell you: First, no idea you have is as preposterous as what will actually eventually happen in the real word.

Can you envision a disastrous, shocking, dystopian, absurd, or chilling scenario? I guarantee it either has come to pass already or will come to pass in your lifetime. So write it down, make a story, and get it out there while the iron is hot so you look like a prophet and reap said rewards. This is advice I didn’t follow with a novel I wrote between 2011 and 2012 that, if published at the time, would make me look like Nostradamus.

Second, stay true to yourselves and write about what you want, because the people who hate you will hate you and have a problem with your work no matter what you do. Say the course, friends. Be brave.

And third, keep thinking, keep dreaming, and keep creating. We need visionaries and truth-tellers to show us both what can (and will) go wrong, but also what to do about it.

Fun sci-fi adventure that doesn’t get into all this stupid sex stuff: