The mystery of "Himmmm"

I find it ironic, in a I-want-to-punch-something sort of way, that people whose entire public speaking career is based on explaining why "just say no to drugs" is unreasonable and will always fail are first and loudest to shame people who don't "just say no to parties".

If you: 

• were outraged when the response to the AIDS pandemic was 'well this wouldn't be a problem if those queers would just stop fucking, they're doing it to themselves'
• derided "abstinence-only" sex education for assuming that if you just don't tell people how to do it safely, they won't dare do it at all
• are aghast at the rationalization that sex work is outlawed because otherwise people (read: men) will spend all their money doing anything that moves, and then bring home horrible diseases to their pure, innocent womenfolk
• campaign against people who criminalize drugs on the grounds that drugs are a death sentence, and if they're not you'll inevitably murder someone to get them

and still rail on Twitter against people who are starting to hold small socially-distance picnics, outside and with masks on, after three months virtually housebound, then you are a flaming goddamned hypocrite, and you need to shut the fuck up.

Socialization is a basic human need. This is why there is a sustained campaign against solitary confinement in prisons. Many experts contend that American prisons fail to respect basic human rights because of their use of it. 

Physical contact is also a basic human need. It does not stop being a basic human need even if it carries the risk of infection. Once upon a time, we were very proud of ourselves for inventing infant incubators, and with them the concept of the NICU, or neonatal intensive care unit. We could stick premature babies into a little plastic box that met all of their physical needs without exposing them to the potentially dangerous world outside. Many of these babies died anyway, from what was called "failure to thrive". Despite being fed, oxygenated, and protected from pathogens, they just... didn't live. Not being touched damages people in concrete ways.

Self-isolation has not just become scientific advice for minimizing risk. It has been framed as a moral imperative. This is all kinds of fucked up. It means no one's allowed to talk about it. There is widespread condemnation for people who voice a desire to get a goddamned haircut. I'm sure there are some cockwombles who really do think haircuts are a human right, the same way there are cockwombles out there who think the Earth is a flattened disk secretly ruled by reptilian aliens, but most of them aren't. It's just that when they voice that they need to have some sort of contact with other humans for the sake of mental health, they're informed that they're selfish monsters for caring about their own emotional well-being. So instead they're appealing to the social contract, which says they're supposed to stay groomed. You can't fault me for grooming! You all told me to do this! This has nothing to do with my feelings, which I have been repeatedly informed are wrong!

I don't know if it's ever occurred to any of these people that, while the BLM movement has garnered ideological support because frankly they're right, but would never have gotten this many people marching in the streets had it not been the only way to meet a need for in-person socialization that does not get you vilified. Fucking of course people are out there with you; the same people who screech that they're a mass murderer for visiting a friend when the lockdown orders ended are lauding them for for masking up and sitting in infinitely closer quarters with thousands of others in the goddamn streets for their pet cause.

[Don't get me wrong. Black Lives Matter is a cause I believe in. We're a little overdue for a revolution here. Capitalism-as-government blows, too, for that matter. But don't pretend that the psychological basis behind the recruitment is any different than the alt-right. You get from passive social-media support to active marching radicalization by appealing to the blatantly disenfranchised, and giving them moral permission to do something they want to do anyway, and resent being shamed for. BLM has the upper hand here, because expressing your frustration through protests is objectively better than doing it by lynching people, but we are all human beings, and we all fundamentally work the same.]

If you would like a little bit of sanity, some people have started to see a modicum of sense. If nothing else, continuing to savage anyone who does anything less than isolate themselves at home 100% of the time is going to royally fuck up any kind of contact tracing program you try to run. If you treat people like criminals for socializing, they're going to deny the ever-loving fuck out of having done it, and then you will have no idea who else might need to be tested. Making it outright illegal would just force you to waste time and effort busting hair salons like speakeasies.