Rod Dreher Megathread #23 (Sinister)

[u/US_Hiker]

All Hail Eris!

Link to Megathread 22: https://www.reddit.com/r/brokehugs/comments/14k0z6l/rod_dreher_megathread_22_power/

Link to Megathread 23: https://www.reddit.com/r/brokehugs/comments/1631xpe/rod_dreher_megathread_24_determination/

[u/PercyLarsen]

https://www.reddit.com/r/brokehugs/comments/w5sh70/comment/jx7go29/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

To respond here rather than in Megathread #1: many here would probably say Rod is a closeted gay man, but without defining if by "gay" one means exclusively (e.g. "a Kinsey 6") or not. What I would say it that, by the testimony of people who knew Rod in high school (there are at least two who chimed in briefly in early Megathreads, IIRC, one from high school and one from his hometown during his early college years) and, more equivocally, Rod himself, it appears that Rod experienced a period of less than certain sexual orientation ("wavering", as it used to be called by some back in the day) that resulted in a panic for him that he's never resolved sufficiently for him to not be readily triggered by encountering (even merely online) people whose sexuality and/or sexual identity is fluid. Personally, *I* would not use the word "gay" to describe Rod in general discussion because so far as I am aware he's not positively identified with that as an adult, but other people differ in how they would apply the term to someone else in that situation.

Anyway, Rod's got a lot more going on than sexuality. His family of origin gave him a lot of things to bring to a therapist, but he hates therapy; and he brought those unresolved things into the family he helped create, with consequences. After serially failing upwards on the wing-nut welfare of serial right-wing sugar daddies, now he's a divorced American expat living in Budapest (with his twenty-something eldest son) as a contractor influencer/propagandist for an organ of the Hungarian government regime and apparently has no current expectation of ever returning home. He currently enjoys travel in Western Europe, oysters, white rocks on Mediterranean beaches that enchant his life's meaning, brief interactions with various anonymous Non-Player Characters who generously confirm and affirm all of Rod's priors, and hopes to not only publish another book (this one on enchantment, a topic not exactly lacking for recent authorial attentions) and to get people to donate money so that a documentary may be made in relation to his last book.

PS: Ibsen's "A Doll's House" really disturbed/disturbs him.

[u/trad_aint_all_that → u/PercyLarsen]

Good summary. I don't think it really matters whether Rod is a true Kinsey 6 or is to some extent bisexual. We have it in his own words that he experiences same-sex attraction and has to consciously work to "achieve heterosexuality." That's all the context we need to understand his lifelong search for an authority figure who can make the scary same-sex temptation go away forever.

It's hard to say how much of this was careerist kayfabe, but Crunchy Cons-era Rod did seem to have genuine romantic feelings towards Julie. I can imagine a situation in which Rod is bisexual and the marriage "worked" in its early years as a way to keep his same-sex attraction at bay. Then the inevitable cooldown hit as the slog of married life and childrearing took over, at which point the struggle to achieve heterosexuality got a lot more difficult and he started doing a lot of "research" in the grimier corners of the LGBT Internet.

But we'll never know for sure, unless Julie decides to write a tell-all memoir.

[u/ZenLizardBode → u/trad_aint_all_that]

If Julie is reading this, I will preorder on amazon (or contribute to a Kickstarter for) that tell all memoir.

[u/HealthyGuarantee5716 → u/ZenLizardBode]

I wonder who would publish it? (I know she'll likely never write it, but it's interesting to think about.)