I think that’s the assumption with the pride flag I hang at camp and the fact that I am a male in my forties who is never married without kids.

The truth is that if anything I’m a pyromaniac, I love burning things. Watching that log burn in the campfire, that plastic bottle shrivel up and disappear in the flames really makes me horney.

Give me a cabin up in the woods with a woodstove and a burn barrel out back for the burnable trash and I’d be happy as a pig in shit. I don’t need the government to tell me what I can and can not burn – I’m well aware there are places like rural Pennsylvania and Missouri with far fewer restrictions on open burning.

It’s not that I haven’t thought about settling down. Or that I didn’t try sessions with a licensed mental health therapist. But ultimately I am who I am and despite maybe a little black smoke from time to time in the wilderness, I doubt I’m hurting anyone much. I get that modern trash in full of chemicals and some of them are going to be released into the environment went burnt but so is the world we live in.

I’ve been told I would be happier if I settled down, got into a committed relationship with a man or a woman. I’ve been told that masturbation is fun but sex with a fellow human being is far more fun. I do like my pictures of burn barrels and reading about rednecks burning their trash when I can’t be up in the woods burning my own stuff.

Some day I will settle down, have that homestead and time for a committed relationship to a man or a woman – I don’t know I’ve never gaven it much thought. Somebody who shares my interests, wants to spend the rest of their life on my homestead. Join the local fire department when I live in a rural area, not just for the fun of participating in controlled burns but also so I can help my neighbors, develop fellowship and make sure they’re not on my back when I’m burning debris on my own land.

By no means am I anti-gay. I say live your life as you choose, I’ll do my thing, you do yours. I’m not ruling out someday a relationship with another man or woman but I enjoy my life as it is today – even if it is a redneck dumpster fire.