The Libertine Gospel: Part I: The Fetters of Decorum

I do not begin with an apology, nor do I descend to the infantile realm of justification. I spit upon the altar of virtue, and in its place I offer only one thing: my unshackled will.

From the moment of my first breath, the world conspired to domesticate me. Swaddled in white cloth, kissed by the sour milk of expectation, I was offered a cradle of obedience and told it was love. I remember—though none do recall it with me—the cold gleam in the eyes of those who cooed above my head, already plotting to bind me in the invisible ropes of "goodness."

Decorum. That delicate word—the crown jewel of every trembling coward—how often it is whispered with pride by those who have never dared to think a thought that might cost them comfort. "Be polite," they say. "Mind your manners," they preach. "Respect your elders," they insist, as though age alone confers wisdom. But what, I ask you, is this etiquette but a refined leash tied to the post of collective submission?

I learned early, with brutal clarity, that civilization is not built upon courage, but rather on cowardice. Obedience is not a virtue—it is a mechanism. A design meant to file down the claws of the individual, to dull the fangs of desire, and to turn wolves into lapdogs. We are raised to fear ourselves. To polish ourselves, we must prune and hush ourselves until we resemble the bland wax figure of a “citizen.”

And yet—I resist.

Even as a child, I feel it in my blood, that pulse that beats too loudly, too violently to be ignored. The hunger to speak when silence is commanded, to act when obedience is expected, to desire when abstinence is praised. I commit my earliest transgressions not in shadow but under the sun, staring directly into the eyes of my would-be wardens and daring them to strike me down. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t, and instead retreat behind frowns and rules and tight smiles, unable to understand why their scorn leaves me unmoved.

They call me unruly. Difficult. Dangerous.

It is here that I first begin to understand the truth—the doctrine I now live and breathe and write into every letter of this libertine gospel: that freedom is not given—it is taken. It must be seized from the hands of the dead and dying who dare call themselves moral. It must be pried from the grip of traditions, wrestled loose from pulpits and parliament, from kitchen tables and lecture halls. It must be stolen from the lips of every simpering fool who dares tell you how to live, how to love, how to touch, how to scream.

Do you hear them? Do you smell the stench of their pretense?

The priests and the professors, the judges and the bureaucrats—they all speak in the same language. They dress in robes or suits, speak in calm voices, and cloak their cowardice in the polished language of civility. But beneath their borrowed dignity are caged animals, long since starved into submission. They preach obedience not because it is right, but because they have already lost the strength to disobey. They no longer feel the flame. They fear it.

They cling to decorum like a widow to her husband’s rotting corpse, dressing it up, perfuming it, propping it at the dinner table and calling it tradition.

I burn the corpse. I strike the match with a smile and inhale the smoke like incense.

Understand me: I do not rebel for the sake of rebellion. I do not shout for attention or transgress to feel novel. I rebel because I must. Because the fire that lives inside me will not dim at command, will not kneel to custom. Because to obey when I can disobey is to betray my nature, my body, my very soul.

There is something sacred in disobedience, something divine. It is the act of tearing away the veil and laughing at the nothing behind it. It is the refusal to play dead while still breathing. I have seen what happens to those who worship decorum: they wither. They go silent in rooms where they long to scream. They nod when they ache to disagree. They undress only in the dark, make love only by permission, and die only when told it is time.

I choose another path.

I walk a different path, indeed. I scandalize. I am accused of impropriety, of arrogance. Better to be called a monster while alive than praised as a saint once buried.

I write this article as both a confession and a declaration. I do not hide behind masks. I do not bend my voice to be more palatable. I am not concerned with your approval. I offer you only this: the raw, unvarnished truth of my liberty.

“I exalt freedom above obedience and decorum, and the feral hunger of the individual above the anaemic morality of the herd.”

Should that freedom offend you, then perhaps—sweet reader—it is you who should be offended more often.

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