is a male-bonding story. The young journalist, Edward Malone, only tags along on the expedition because he's trying to impress a girl. But after he returns triumphant he learns that the disloyal bitch has married somebody else! But he's happy that he's made his best friends ever and plans to go back with them on the next exhibition, so it has a happy ending after all.

Cassablanca also had a "give up the women, stick with the men" message. It's a healthy antidote to the rampant heterosexism society forces down our throats. People love the look in Bogie's eyes when he says, "You better get out of here before I change my mind." He realizes that there are some things more important than romance, but it really tears him up just the same.

I'm not sure Paul was right to keep pushing his "homosexuality can save civilization" theme. I don't think sexuality can save civilization. Only love can do that. And men find it easier to love one another when they leave sexuality out of it. Perhaps men and women would learn something similar if they could ever overcome their addiction to instant gratification. The focus on sex is fucking up our world a lot. Lots of people who are really in need of a hug are not getting it because of sexualized thinking.

It all started in the "sexual freedom" movement of the 60's. Books like The Joy of Sex taught that it would be healthy to have sex in public. Homosexuals welcomed extreme promiscuity since they had always been like that anyway. Sex completely undermined their ability to love, but they tried to ignore that problem. They invented the term "recreational sex" to defend mindless hedonism.

It all proves my contention that very few people understand how to gather evidence at a psychological level. It's one thing to advance a hypothesis that promiscuity might be healthy, but quite another to try it out and not even notice how much it's undermining you.

I think we have to stop obsessing about sex and realize that there are other, equally important, biological drives that transcend gender. After all, Paul analoged sex with celebration, and love with power. Why discuss only one of these just because it's more controversial than the others? If I were an academic I'd use words like homophilia, homodynamic and homocelebrative to get the party started. But I'm not. So for now I'm content to use the word "gay" and to admit that we need to find equally ordinary terms for these other, equally important, needs.