I don't consort gladly with Southern Baptists, Hardshell Baptists, Missionary Baptists, Freefall Baptists, Seventh-Day Baptists, or Bible thumpers of similar nose-plug immersion ilk.
These wet-brain types just don't cuzzin up to us non-dunkable gays and lesbians (most of whom, by the way, get sprinkled and/or pickled on weekends, mostly outside of church).
Oddly I found myself sitting near two fundygelicals last Friday at – of all places – Royal Oak's Pronto, a popular spot known mostly for catering to Unitarian/Universalists, Scientologists, Jack Mormons and – no big surprise – Recovering Catholics ordering fish for old time's sake.
I'm not one to eavesdrop (unless they're cute and breathing), especially on those wearing WWJD? T-shirts and displaying Scofield Bibles for all and sundry passing by the restaurant window to see. (It beats me how these two smuggled Bibles past maitre d' Suede Waitstaffer in the first place. He's usually vigilant about that sort of thing.)
What really grabbed my nearsighted attention was some serious neck-and-neck whispering. I wasn't quite sure I heard these goody-two-sandals correctly, so I inconspicuously edged my chair inch by inch closer. (Inching closer is second nature to us gay Taureans.)
"I'm worried about Brother Smith. He went off to Asia for a missionary stint, and came back with sumpin' called Koro. K-o-r-o. It's spreading like a biblical plague. There's not a day that's gone by I haven't gotten my ruler out, and I don't mean golden. Thank heaven for Bible Pumpers for Jesus!"
Of course, worrywart me, I got to wondering whether by sitting in close proximity to these two dunkers, I might have gotten Koro. So to satisfy my curiosity – and that of my equally worrywart PG readers – I did some research.
Koro: "Intense and often debilitating fear that sexual organs are shrinking, dropping off, or being sucked into the abdomen. Koro is the Malaysian name for the disease and the accepted medical and behavioral science term. In China it's called saoyang." (Pronunciation: so-long-wang.)
I don't mean to cast the first stone, but according to "The Odd Brain: Mysteries of our WEIRD & Wonderful BRAINS Explained," by Dr. Stephan Juan (MJF Books, 2006), America's first reported case of koro – 1987 – was a native-born, white male in his 30s. He was very, very troubled by his fundygelical religious beliefs (and closeted, excessive whacking off).
Writes Dr. Juan of this poor guy: "He was conflicted about his masturbation because his religion prohibited it. He felt that he 'added stripes to Christ's back every time he did so.' Furthermore, the patient was not attracted to men and always failed in his relationships with women." Sounds weirdly like Mel Gibson.
Fortunately, there's hope for Bible thumpers like Dr. Juan's case history, whose lives through no fault of their own (even though whacking off is a choice few can resist) have become a shrink-wrap hell.
So, what's this group called BP4J all about? (Mind you, this is all second hand – that, plus a sudden increase in pump sales at wholesale joy-through-toy outlets in Royal Oak and Ferndale.)
"Bible Pumpers for Jesus is" – according to a preacher who asked not to be named in a gay weekly – "a fellowship of like believers who get together as often as possible in each others homes to ensure, by comparative support, incremental charts, happy hugs and vigorous handshakes, that tangible concepts of religious manhood are still intact and growing day by day."
Succinctly put: Seek and ye shall find. You've just got to know where to look. For how long. The longer the better. Come hell or high water.
