Your Edge May Be Straight, but Sweetheart, You’re LOOPY!

I have been wanting to approach this topic for some time, but needed to wait until I found a way to do so in as non-offensive a way as possible. Mostly because what I’m touching on is kind of a sensitive subject for some people and I want to write this blog without being judgmental, overbearing, or unnecessarily bitchy.

So here goes:

I have nothing against most straight edge people. Being straight edge is a personal choice. I actually have to salute a lot of people who remain straight edge despite access to booze or drugs or what have you.

That being said, I ask that straight edge people offer me the same thing I offer them: respect my personal choice.

Look, I’m not going to force you to drink or smoke. You don’t want to, you don’t want to. There’s nothing prudish or WRONG about deciding not to drink or smoke. It doesn’t mean you’re weak or don’t know how to live or whatever other insults people might sling at you. You don’t want to? FINE, don’t. If you need the straight edge philosophy to help you out in life? Shit, go for it! Sometimes people need some sort of guiding philosophy to help them out and there’s NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT.

However, do not go after me because I choose not to follow the same path that you do. I drink on occasion and I smoke socially. I had an alcohol problem in the past that I addressed (it was called “college”). Drinking does not make ME weak, it doesn’t mean that I’m going to end up on heroin, it doesn’t mean I’m going to end up having an ill-fated hook up that results in me getting AIDS. It just means I sometimes have a glass of wine or a rum and coke to help me relax, I’ll grab a beer with friends, or I’ll get plastered because it’s easier to write porn that way.

Wait, what?

Another thing to keep in mind is that people change. Just because someone commits to being SxE at one point in their life doesn’t mean it will always work for them. It’s THEIR CHOICE. If they chose to start drinking? They have the right. The only time it becomes an issue is when they still claim to be edge but are drinking and/or doing drugs. Whether I subscribe to this philosophy or not, even I can see the problem with that kind of hypocrisy. People truly believe in that sort of thing, and if you are going to claim to believe it, have some respect for the others who really DO internalize it.

Also? As a general note to everyone, PLEASE do not assume that just because someone refrains from drinking that makes them straight edge. It doesn’t make them straight edge unless they identify as straight edge. If they simply choose not to drink, you know what that makes them? A non-drinker.

Like I said, I have no issue with people who choose to be SxE. My issue comes in when they are pushy and holier-than-thou-art about it. I ask these people to face facts:

  1. You cannot control what the people around you do
  2. You cannot make life decisions for people around you, or even for people you do not know
  3. Your way of life is not better or worse, simply different.
  4. Your idols may, in fact, sometimes drink or smoke. Deal with it.
  5. Live and let live, motherfuckers.