To what extent should we be allowed to do what we want?

This is getting dangerously close to arguments about rights and the protection thereof, and that's a rant for another day when I don't have reading I should be doing and can type for an hour about it. What I'm talking about is certain lifestyle choices.

Let's start with my bitching about the goth night the other day. So we all dressed up goff-like, and we got stared at, glared at, flinched away from. Why? What prompts that sort of knee-jerk recoil? Fear of the unknown? It seems to be the accepted answer, but... well, it doesn't seem to be enough to me. Need to conform, I dunno. They think we're 'weird', but do they ever stop to think how, or whether it's necessarily a bad thing?

Probably not.

I'm witnessing an on-list discussion regarding sexuality, appearances and responses. It's interesting. While I am, and appear to all the world to be, practically an old married woman, I am of the opinion that everyone is bisexual. Kinsey scale, and all that. I mean, we love people, not equipment.

(I don't think I'm going anywhere with this. Maybe I should just end it here, and go back to the Vietnam War.)

Should anyone else be bothered by any choice I make about how to live my life? Should I be bothered by anyone else's decision? Shouldn't we just be a conglomeration of people and their individual choices? The beautiful diversity of life in all its glory.

I tell you, a cynic is just a frustrated optimist.