Before one can truly understand Skipping, however, one must be familiar with Slouching Towards Gomorrah, the bible of social conservatives. While it is wholly a condemnation of modern liberalism in general, Slouching devotes major sections to the need for a community based morality to counter the radical individualism of liberalism. Should government allow people complete freedom of action as long as their actions do not directly harm someone else? Absolutely not, Says Bork. While individualism is an important facet of democracy, it must have its limits. Drug users, pornographers, and the glorifiers of violence do not force anyone to partake in their immorality, but even so the effects of their efforts are felt throughout the community. Bork thus advocates regulations on the local level that restrict individuals ability to indulge in the most prurient of interests. Local control is essential to Bork's views, because it allows a small Mormon community in Utah to live peacefully apart from a place like, say, Las Vegas. That in a nutshell is the view of a social conservative.

Enter Dan Savage. He hates the entire idea of community morality. He believes in a kind of individualism so radical in nature that it would appall most everyone, except maybe Alan Dershowitz or Harry Browne. Sodomy? Drugs? Prostitution? Organized orgy sessions among dozens of married couples? It's all good! It is important to note here that Dan Savage uses the common two-step reasoning toward radical individualism. First, the government has no right, neither morally nor constitutionally, to interfere with individual behavior. And oh! by the way America would be much better without such regulation. Which is it anyway? The liberal would tell you it's mainly the former, the libertarian would say the latter, but they all end up making both arguments in the end anyway. Savage's message is that government has no mandate to outlaw prostitution (for example) between consenting buyer and seller. Also, however, society would be so much better off if prostitution were legal, on a purely practical level.

Does this mean to say that I did not enjoy the book? No, actually I loved it. It was deeply engrossing. Savage is a truly gifted writer with a flair for storytelling. His treatment of each of the seven deadly sins reads like seven mini travel memoirs. He deftly keeps the reader interested by balancing his drivel about private morality with his own experiences in places many Americans have not ventured. His search for gluttony, for example, takes him to a Fat Admirer (FA) convention, where he is promptly hit on by a well proportioned woman who mistakes him for an FA. The political purpose of these conventions is to pretend obesity is something (like skin color) that people cannot control. The result would be airlines forced to provide free extra accommodations and businesses forbidden from firing grossly overweight individuals, even if their weight directly affects their ability to do their job. But there's more to this story of the glutton convention it turns out many FAs are predators. Their attraction to a woman is directly proportional to her weight, with no upper bound! This is a sexual preference that even Dan Savage can't seem to fathom. The author relates stories from the obese women at the convention about peers who marry FAs. Some FAs encourage their fat partners to eat and eat and eat, to constantly gain weight, furthering their husband's guilty pleasure. Sometimes their obesity reaches the point where they can no longer even walk. This gluttonous society, however, cheerfully recommends a wheelchair to such people 800 lbs and over. The health risks of such monstrous gluttony? They're non-existent, just lies from the skinny majority, according to the convention sponsors.

Stories like that are admittedly a bit grotesque, but they are also quite intriguing. Savage has clearly worked hard to provide his readers with insights into sinful behavior from his own perspective. Unlike a mere report (something like I just wrote above concerning gluttony), he narrates his experiences chronologically, putting himself in the reader's mind. His technique makes for a great read, even for admirers of Robert Bork.

Still, the theme that holds together the book is that of radical individualism, and that message must be dealt with. Take Savage's discussion of swingers clubs in his chapter on lust. He first notes that lust in some degree is necessary. Quite right. After all, we would not be here if our parents did not indulge in lustful behavior. However, a principle of moral behavior is to restrict and channel our primitive instincts in order to live in a better society. Overwhelming evidence shows that marriage- based, two-parent family is the best situation in which children can be raised. Lustful free love, while physically pleasurable, is incompatible with marriage and does not benefit society. (It is also, in my opinion, bad for individual mental health, but that is a separate discussion.) But, Savage asks, is promiscuity actually bad for marriage? In swingers clubs, married couples come to participate in organized infidelity. Alcohol and drugs are forbidden, condoms are required, all sex is consensual, and bouncers are ready to throw out men who threaten women in any way. These orgies have the supposed benefit of allowing married couples sexual outlets that make marriage less of a burden. After all, the supposed only alternative is to cheat on one's spouse secretively, which can result in the destruction of families. With swingers clubs, all activity is out in the open. This leads Savage to an interesting conclusion society's taboo on infidelity is actually harmful!

And this is a man who wants the legal right to marry his boyfriend? The problem with this analysis is two-fold. One, it ignores the moral basis of sexual intercourse, which is the loving union of two people, a consummation of their commitment to each other. Think what I just said is crap? Go live in Gomorrah. Seriously. Savage spends so much time talking about how no majority should impose on any individual, but he ignores the reality of the situation his imperialistic imposition of individual rights on every little community in the country. He seeks to turn every town, even that Mormon one in Utah, into his own Gomorrah by imposing on them his own conception of individual rights. If a little Bible belt town wants to ban swingers clubs from its premises, there is Dan Savage, defending liberty by imposing his views of sexual freedom. The second problem with favoring swingers clubs is that, quite frankly, it would destroy the institution of marriage. In the book, Savage speaks with many swingers, including an otherwise normal couple with children. The couple is very secretive about its behavior. They would never tell co-workers, and they certainly would never tell their children. But why not tell their kids? If swinging is that outlet necessary for a healthy marriage, why not teach them about the glories of it? The answer is that it would have the effect of completely separating sex from marriage, and thus separating childbearing from marriage, and thus absolving people of all social responsibility associated with marriage.

Think about the problem common to both inner city and rural poverty. It is illegitimacy, and that is what non-marital sex produces. Not everyone is going to use contraception, or use it effectively for that matter. Even if no children are introduced into an extra-marital affair, sexual experiences can lead to emotional attachments that destroy the original marriage. After all, sex remains an emotional issue for most people, not a mere act of lust as Savage would portray it. Of course there will always be some secretive cheaters who lose their families because of their sexual appetites. But better to breakup some families rather than completely destroy the idea of a family.

Savage is at his libertarian best with his chapter on sloth. Everyone needs a little laziness, he says. Sloth is what refreshes us and prepares us for another hard day at work. The American worker, the author laments, does after all work more than his counterparts in most other industrialized countries. (American workers are also the most productive.) Given that Americans do not have enough real vacations, Savage endorses the pot vacation. It's simple science apparently smoking marijuana makes time makes time slow down for people, so that a single night feels like a weeklong, refreshing vacation. The slothfulness of pot smoking thus can enliven us all. One's immediate reaction to this reasoning is to compare the degree to which various slothful acts incapacitate a person. Driving a car and wandering around in public are quite safe acts to perform after having slothfully lounged in front of the television. But are they safe after smoking pot? We obviously must be careful with the ways in which we choose to relax.

Most of Savage's chapter on sloth is devoted to the glories of legalizing drugs. The two-headed argument for legalization, as mentioned earlier, again comes up. First, no one can interfere with another person's right to pursue happiness in his own way, Savage asserts. It is a fundamental right found in the Declaration of Independence, he argues, and Thomas Jefferson would supposedly agree with him. The idea that Savage s radical view of individual rights is somehow consistent with the original intent of the Founding Fathers is laughable, considering the amount of local censorship and behavior restrictions in place at the time. That aside, it is curious that radical individualists never consider the impact of collective individual actions on society. Should a mother be allowed to shoot heroin all day while leaving her young children without a caretaker? Should a man be allowed to spend his life savings on cocaine purchases when his family was counting on that money for their own well-being? All actions have consequences beyond the individual, and it is up to communities to decide which actions are harmful enough to restrict.

While Savage clearly supports the legalization of all drugs, he then discusses at length the fact that marijuana is not harmful. Why should this matter to the debate at all, if there is no moral right to stop people from using drugs even if they are harmful? Savage cites studies disproving the liars at the DEA who claim pot can be harmful. I m not an expert, and I certainly have no personal experience with the drug, so I will not dispute him on this point. However, let us suppose for the moment that pot smoking was absolutely, without a doubt, harmless. At the risk of sounding tyrannical, I must say society could still have a legitimate interest in preventing people from slothfully smoking pot all day rather than being productive. Being high on pot is another form of intoxication, and God knows we have enough problems with alcohol intoxication in this country already.

Perhaps Savage's weakest chapter is his discussion of guns. Reader and author alike are surprised to find our hero is a natural shot! At a Texas gun store Savage impresses all with his accuracy with a firearm. The story, however, is just a frame for his surprisingly unintelligent discussion of gun control. He thinks he has caught Robert Bork in hypocrisy. Bork opposes banning handguns because illicit markets adapt to overcome difficulties. In other words, with a ban on guns lawbreakers could still have guns, but law-abiding people could not. Ah ha! There is also an illicit market for drugs. Shouldn't that same argument apply to drug legalization, which Bork opposes? Of course not. They key difference that Savage blindly misses is that drugs are indisputably bad for all who use them, whereas guns can and are used quite effectively in self-defense. To allow only criminals to have guns would be awful, but to allow only criminals to use drugs is far better than letting normally law-abiding people use drugs as well. Bill O'Reilly, mentioned quite often in Skipping Towards Gomorrah, dismissively calls the book "dopey." I disagree.

Skipping, despite its logical problems, is very entertaining. I was fascinated by Savage's, shall we say, unique experiences, and I really felt like I could relate to him as a normal person. Unfortunately, the moral message of the book was appalling. Savage is a gifted writer, but perhaps he should stick to that sex column.