Every year toward the end of summer, I raise a glass and toast the memory of Tommy Granger. It was 367 years ago that Tommy became one of the first people executed in the American Colonies. He was also the first juvenile to suffer capital punishment. Tommy Granger was just 17-years-old when the Pilgrim Fathers of the Plymouth Colony sent him to the gallows.
Now, you might wonder why anyone would execute a teenager. Was Tommy a murderer? Was he America's first serial killer? Did he commit treason? Was he a kidnapper, a thief, an arsonist?
No. Poor Tommy Granger was hanged because he got caught fucking a sheep.
I contend that Tommy's execution was an egregious miscarriage of justice. You see, I am of the unshakeable opinion that it was not Tommy's fault. He simply could not help himself.
The instinct to copulate, the urge to enjoy life's most basic pleasure, won't be denied. Men and women will risk everything - their reputations, their fortunes, even their lives - in pursuit of the sexual act. In certain nations and cultures where God's name is used to condemn the very instinct that God has given us, adulterers are routinely sent to the stoning field. Despite the risk of gruesome death and public humiliation, there is never a shortage of adulterers. I suspect they'll run out of stones before they run out of fornicators.
In the absence of members of the opposite sex, heterosexual men will turn to other men and women will seek pleasure with their own kind. Other humans aren't even necessary to satisfy the sex drive. Farm boys, like poor Tommy Granger, have been known to dally with their livestock and shepherds sometimes grow overly fond of their flocks.
Warm flesh isn't even a requirement to achieve sexual release. Inanimate objects - plastic, wooden, natural and manmade, electrified and manually operated - have all been used to simulate the sex act. If there is any possibility for sexual pleasure, no matter how remote or inconceivable, no matter how perverse or disgusting, you can be sure that someone has tried it.
The uncontrollable urge to copulate is not restricted to the young. Older folks have their needs, too, although certain delicate problems arise when the urge strikes someone of advanced years. As the great writer, Jim Harrison, once wrote, "The older a man gets the more weird things he has to do to get his dick hard." That's why Viagra is one of the most prescribed medications in this country. That's why ads for erectile disfunction remedies and male enhancement nostrums are all over the TV, radio, newspapers, and magazines. When it comes time for older men to act on their fevered fantasies, they want to be able to rise to the occasion.
The lower orders are not exempt from the most basic of instincts. Animals will fight to the death for the privilege of mating. Once in rut, some animals will copulate themselves into states of total exhaustion, becoming easy prey for opportunistic predators. Certain insects live for just a few frenzied days, long enough to mate, if they're lucky, and create more single-minded insects. Salmon make epic journeys, swimming across thousand of miles of ocean to reach their spawning grounds, the only places on earth they can breed - and then they die.
So, this September, join me in raising a glass to the memory of Tommy Granger, a martyr to the cause of uncontrollable lust. He was a true pioneer in his field, a man who, by all rights, should be as well known as the Marquis de Sade, Caligula and the Mitchell Brothers.
And when you toss down that drink in Tommy's memory, say to yourselves, as I always do, "There, but for the grace of God, go I."
Note from the author
If you agree that a terrible injustice was done to Tommy Granger, please join me in a letter writing campaign to our Senators and Congressmen. It's high time that Tommy Granger's good name and reputation are restored.
