At Bootlust.com our goal is to explore through creative story telling and creative image making (we rarely post pics right out of a camera) a limited range of homoerotic fantasies from which we've gotten much pleasure.The ability to have fantasies- especially sexual fantasies- is a uniqe part of being human.Fantasies are like dreams. They are play, and trying to capture their spirit and find new and better ways to express them in pictures and in writings is for us challenging and fun. We, like most in our business, are frankly frightened by the Bush Administration's recent return to use of what we view as Thought Police to shut down sexual fantasy themed web sites. We think you should be freaked too.

Every erotic themed web site you visit has tasted this fear. We at Bootlust do not understand why so few of our fellow webmasters have posted any information for you about what is a growing threat. There are countless millions of you who patronize our sites. Very few of you want government deciding for you what ideas and thoughts you as an adult citizen can access. You are a force no politician wants to reckon with. With this commentary we're trying to sound an alarm. Unfortunately, most of our colleagues on the WEB are either too timid or too stupid to do the same.

Understand first that it is not just the showing of real sex acts that the Bush Administration Justice Department is targeting. They have decided to raid and seize web masters' property and threaten them with prison even when the erotic subject matter is pure fantasy. We're talking imaginary situations with imaginary people, imaginary props, role playing, and even imaginary emotions. We don't even have to be talking about pictures, since all fantasies can be shared with just words. By definition, fantasies are only thoughts. It's our position that giving government police powers over people's right to explore or share such thoughts with each other is no different than giving government the power to police ideas. That is exactly what is starting to happen since the election of 2004 here in the USA.

Until this year, the best (as in WORST) example of government prosecuting the sharing of pure sexual fantasy ideas was the time about a decade ago when armed police stormed the Cincinnati (Ohio) Museum of Contemporary Art. They forced all patrons out of the museum onto the street. They closed the museum, and arrested the museum curator. Why? What was so dangerous? The "danger" was an exhibit of Robert Mapplethorpe's S&M fantasy photographs which were hanging on the museum's walls. Decades before, a similar gang of cops wearing guns hauled comedian Lenny Bruce off stages in both NYC and San Francisco. They took him to jail. Why? Bruce was nailed for the words -JUST THE WORDS!!- he used as part of sexually themed humor monologues in adult night clubs. There were many hundreds of other examples of books, pictures and even songs being targeted for censorship and prosecution.

Thought Police had to find employment elsewhere during the Clinton Administration. If you've been waiting for them to return now that the Republicans are back in control ( they were side tracked by 9/11 ) it appears your wait is now over. FBI agents working under the supervision and with the full approval of President Bush's Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, just raided the home of a woman who featured sex fantasy stories-NOT EVEN PICTURES- JUST WORDS- on her web site. They seized her computer and office equipment and with threats and intimidation forced her to remove all fantasy narrations from her web site. They then moved on to attack the offices of the server that carried her site onto the WEB. As reported by Public Broadcasting, Bush Justice Department Obscenity Task Force Teams have been attacking scores more web sites offering sexual fantasy themes.

Click to read statement by web site shut down by U.S. Gov't "MEN IN BLACK"

The average Americans -that's probably what you are- has never been a great supporter of Thought Police. Certain religious sects (without whose support the Republican Party wouldn't have a prayer of winning enough elections to control anything) may think Thought Cops do God's Good Work, but to most of the rest of us, Thought Police are just plain scary!

The Thought Cops' mantra has always been "We're just enforcing the law." ( We got nervous when we heard Bush's Attorney General nominee Gonzales use that line during his Senate confirmation hearings.) But U.S. courts very rarely convict citizens for thought crimes, sexual or otherwise, so why go to all the trouble of dragging citizens through the hellish, expensive routine of arrest-detainment-property confiscation, if in the end, you're unlikely to get convictions? To put it simply, Thought Police are in the business of legal terrorism. They use the law, not as a shield to protect society, but as a cudgel to control through threat and intimidation the exploring of thoughts and ideas that certain politicians may object to but have little chance of controlling through due process in courts of law.

In the end their target is always YOU, even though you may never run a web site or publish books. Whether the Thought Cops call themselves The League of Decency, The Breen Commission, the Meese Commission or the Bush /Gonzales Family Values Caped Crusaders, all of their attempts at censorship spring from a basic distrust of YOU; a belief that YOU should not be allowed to see certain images or read or hear certain words. If you are an American citizen, you should be aware the the Bush administration believes your government should now be about the business of protecting you from YOU.

Fantasies may be only thoughts and ideas. But Thought Police are very real. They wear real guns and their real handcuffs are not reserved for use in role playing games. With the approval of the Bush Administration, they are going about the business of shutting down web sites by intimidation. Their principal weapon is legal terrorism.

Our hope is you never have to know first hand how the patrons of that Cincinnati museum must have felt when they were told they were not allowed to look at Robert Mapplethorpe's images, and officers wearing guns pushed them out onto the street. But if you do get that feeling, be sure and let your U.S. Congressman and Senators know about it!