GLR March-April 2023

these items, noting that both parents died of Covid in 2020 and describing his travails after leaving Peru at age five and grow ing up in Southern California. Suffice it to say, his vintage comic collection is something he takes very seriously. How all this intersects with being gay is unclear, though some people will undoubtedly try to make something of it. In rejecting the Bible, Garcia was passing on the book that’s been the justifi cation for so much anti-gay hatred. And the choice of a comic book to replace it—the substitution of low culture for high— is pretty much the definition of Camp. Breaking News The story accretes from day to day, so any thing we say about Congressman (for now) George Santos will seem quaint by the time you read this. At this writing we’re learning that he once had a drag act in Brazil, a story he’s denied (kind of), but there are photos to prove that “Kitara Ravache” ex isted. And while pageant queens are expected to assume a fake name, Santos would go on to invent many identities with which to defraud customers, employers, or voters. What’s remarkable is the sheer number of scams and deceits that he devised and juggled. (How did he keep track?) One searches for an organiz ing principle that unites his claims of descending from Holo caust survivors, being a volleyball star at Baruch College, working for Goldman Sachs, employing four people who died in the Pulse Nightclub massacre, and on and on. Doubtless crimes were committed, but so much of what Santos claimed seem like the tall tales of a bullshit artist. Blog gers have joined the parlor game of diagnosing his personality disorder, and clearly he has one, but it’s also possible to see him as a creature of social media culture gone mad. The various aliases all started out as avatars to which he attributed fabulous deeds and ancestry. His mistake was running for political of fice—something that could also be said for Donald Trump or anyone who has a lot of skeletons. You can create all the trolls and profiles that you want on-line, but eventually you may have to make an appearance IRL, as when you run for public office. If there’s a psychological disorder at work, it may be that—like some unknown percentage of today’s TikTok celebs—Santos came to believe that identities in the real world could be created and managed as easily as those in the virtual one. Alas, we only have one physical body to work with. Alternatives to The Pill A woman claiming that she became a lesbian after she stopped taking birth control pills became a TikTok sensation when her story struck a chord for many women. This is big news if her case is typical, as it would mean that one side effect of the pill is heterosexuality! The report set off a conversation about the hormonal changes caused by the pill and whether they could alter one’s sexual orientation. Var ious theories came into play: the effect of returning to natural levels of progesterone and estrogen; a change in pheromone response to male and female scents; certain changes in “men tal health.” They all sound plausible enough, but is it not pos sible (one’s inner economist is asking) that going off the pill, by putting pregnancy back on the table, simply alters the cal culus of sex with men for some women? This effect could still be the work of hormones, which could apply some ancient brakes on the lure of procreative sex, an epigenetic switch that causes one to look at other women in a whole new way. March–April 2023

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