Parting Glances: Square Pegs, Round Holes

How many of the 7.125 billion earth humans are you personally acquainted with? According to the U.S. Census Bureau, that's the world's last population count as of 2013. And climbing!
That's billions more than the year I was born, eight less-crowded decades ago, 7:49 a.m., Tuesday, May 12, in Detroit's Harper Hospital. ("Coffee Table Book of Astrology" says Taurus is the sign of sexual deviancy. Three other gay friends share this auspicious date.)
When it comes down to it, the average of LGBT Bruce or Billy Jean's face-to-face friends and coworkers is less than 100 or 200 persons — Facebook contacts to the contrary. (I can count my friends on both hands, and if I bend over, my casual acquaintances on both feet.)
For most of us, 7-billion-plus homosapiens, the sobering thought is that we don't exist. Others haven't a clue who we are. Or we, they. (By the way: I'm of the opinion that same-sex attraction is nature's way of reducing population crowds. That, Planned Parenthood and a good celebratory wank. Alone or otherwise.)
My train of thought on the Big 7 is curiously triggered by regular, dutiful, monthly reading of "Fortean Times: The World of Strange Phenomena" (www.ForteanTimes.com). The magazine's named for Charles Fort (1874-1932), who spent years researching oddball data in the New York Public Library and the British Museum.
Fort wrote four "oddendia": "The Book of the Damned," "New Lands," "Lo!" and "Wild Talents." He was among the first to speculate that mysterious sky lights might be craft from outer space. He boldly explored the wild frontiers between the known and unknown.
Truth is indeed stranger than friction, and from a sexual point of view — where friction really counts the most — I thought it might be kicky to summer's end to share a few bazaar items from FT to culturally enlighten the lives of those of us who are forced — through no uncharitable fault of our own — to live accident and/or kink free:
Item 1: "Art Price, Jr., 40, of Bellevue, OH, was facing public indecency charges after allegedly being seen on four separate mornings having sex with a picnic table one windy March weekend, when a nosy — and, no doubt, incredulous — neighbor videotaped him. What made this a felony is that it took place near a school.
"'He was nude,' said a police spokesman. 'He'd use the hole from the table umbrella to have sex.' Price, the father of three admitted he 'had a problem.'" To say the least. And not with ants.
Item 2: "A German pensioner is suing a hospital after she checked in for a leg operation and woke up to find she had been given a new anus." No comment! "The surgeons responsible, at a hospital in Hochfranken, Bavaria, were suspended after admitting they mixed up her notes with those of a woman suffering from chronic incontinence." Preparation H, anyone?
Item 3: Under the FT subheading, "Strange Deaths: Unusual ways of Shuffling Off This Mortal Coil." "Stephan Hayes, a 32-year-old graphic designer, died from asphyxiation in Chippenham, Wiltshire, England, after wrapping clingfilm round his head during a sex act that went wrong. All he was wearing on 13 May was a pair of Marigold gloves." Kinky. But very House Beautiful.
"(Same May 13) Gary Ashbrook, 31, died after pulling a condom over his head and filling it with laughing gas. His naked body was found with three empty cans of nitrous oxide by his side. Verdict: misadventure." Typical gaseous, British understatement.