As I said to an instructor as I turned a story in, "this is not so much a fabrication, as a collage".

Some of you will say "What?! This is a hoax?". Shame on you. At the top of the page, I announce that this is a page of fiction. And, yet it isn't. The Shrine of Ultimate Love is every obscure little sect, every Mensa party, every campus organization where the host tried to loosen up the rules a little, and discovered one sad truth. A decade of the constraints of Political Correctness have left people so little accustomed to real freedom that common sense and the instinct for good taste have atrophied from disuse. The Shrine is every boneheaded PC argument that someone has had with the sensitivity police as he tried to claim his own freedom and the fiasco many of us have had looming on the horizon, just as we were forced to crack down on our own guests.

The Shrine does not exist and yet it is everywhere.

The rules themselves are not entirely fictional. "See!", someone is saying right now, "I knew he was a pervert!". No, not a pervert, merely a civil libertarian, to a degree. I recognize the difference between wanting to do something myself and wanting someone else to have the freedom to do it, if that is what he wishes. Pity is, most people don't.

I got the idea for this little article when I got to hear some New Agers making the currently fashionable noises about how "all acts of pleasure are sacred to the goddess" and "an ye harm none, do as thou wilt". Now, if you've ever gotten to know any of these guys, you know that maybe 85% of this is pure posturing. In public, the Rotarians are wilder. But I was wondering what would happen if, having talked the talk, they finally decided to walk the walk. What, realistically, would happen, and at what point would it cease to become mere non-comformity and truly be ugly? More to the point, it made me think, where do I draw my line?

It is fiction, and yet it is not. These are the rules in place in my home and one could consider the Shrine to be a pseudonym for any of the little collections of unaffiliated Pagans to have come through here. This being the 90s, that would be a good many, and these rules were found to be generally agreeable. Including, as little as some like to hear it, the homophobic ones. Actually, especially the homophobic ones.

But, are those rules "fair"? Fairness is not an issue in this case, the comfort of my guests is, and we all have our own likes or dislikes. Is it "fair" that some of us are more entertaining than others or better looking, and get to go out more as a result? Maybe not, but as I said once to someone who didn't like a particular bit of physical reality, "If you don't like it, take it up with God." I didn't build the world, don't ask me to fix it.

But, most of all, as I do my little homage to some of our less inhibited brethren, I find myself reminded of "Mr.Fertility". Having heard the good word that every part of us is sacred, our friend reached into his pants to grab a part of himself that had seldom seen the sun, and brought up a ripe brown handful of fragrant richness to share with us all. So, if one of my former little pockets of visitors should collectively wish to create their own group and revive a little old freedom, I'm all for that, and I'll be happy to offer a little help and support. But take this little opus as my explantion as to why, when I walk the walk, I try to be a little careful about who it is that is walking with me.

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