You know, I have a history of heavy partying.

I’ve been to parties where you need the password to enter. I’ve been to parties with literal bowls of ecstasy pills on the VIP table. I’ve been to parties that randomly erupted into group sex on a dance floor. I’ve also been to parties that had a “gun box”—a place where you dropped off your weapons before you entered.

It’s not always a fun time. Sometimes, things go from chill to terrifying. I’ve also been to parties where people have been shot and thrown down stairs for breaking the rules—among others.

I know good vibes when I see them. I also know bad vibes when I hear about them. It’s often a fine line. The most obvious line that you see drawn is with consent, especially with bedroom antics. The more subtle line I’ve noticed? It’s often politics.

As many people in my arena know, there’s an unspoken rule about politics in parties: you don’t ask about politics at those parties and if you do, you’ll notice that conservatives tend to be a lot more depraved than liberals when doors are closed.

So, uh, did anyone else hear about Steve Bannon’s old mansion?

Rebecca Schoenkopf

(aka Wonkette) decided to report on it and I find it to be a very damning explanation of what’s going on with top GOP politicians and their buddies.

This went on beyond the typical noise complaints of tires screeching and the like, all the way into territory that I, myself, have never really seen. I’ll leave a couple of blocks of it here:

Excuse me, but why in the cinnamon toast fuck is there a reason to have a bathtub full of body-dissolving acid in your party house?!

Wow. I left apartments a mess before, but goddamn, not like that. We just left behind couches and things.

I’m not even going to get into the whole part about his wife’s restraining order against him or his wife’s relationship to an inmate, but the point still stands. This party house sounds more like a house of horrors than anything else.

I can only think of two reasons for a bathtub filled with acid: to dissolve bodies and to produce alarming quantities of certain drugs. And all things considered, I’m not sure what to make of this report.

I mean, do I have to even bring up Jeffrey Epstein and the sex trafficking rings that were so rife throughout the modeling world? Because that was a massive scandal that almost entirely hit the conservative world.

I’m also going to point out that the partying isn’t always just a matter of partying with coke and stuff. Sometimes it’s a bit more innocuous—such as the heavy rumors of a certain Southern GOP politician who allegedly buys the company of adult male escorts.

The truth is that excess like this has been a low-key plague of the GOP and its Christian fundie fans. I mean, there was a whole documentary about a guy who acted as a bull in a fundie giant’s cuckold relationship and the aftermath of it.

Wilder still, there are so many similar documentaries about Christian and GOP scandals that it’s hard for me to remember the name! That should tell you a little bit about what’s going on.

I don’t remember where I heard it, but I once heard someone say that international spies were (at one point) linked to paraphilias—also known as fetishes that interrupt one’s daily life.

Why paraphilias? The idea behind it was one that involved repression.

When you’re a person who has to stay under the radar in order to keep your life together, you have to repress urges. Normally, this just would turn you into the pervy uncle who makes dirty jokes at the dinner table.

But, studies have shown that there’s another link to paraphilias that we don’t talk about: trauma. More specifically, childhood trauma and sexual abuse have a strong link to paraphilias.

Here’s the thing, though: kink doesn’t make you a bad person. Having trafficking evidence and suspicious shit like an acid-filled tub, on the other hand, do. So what’s the link here? Is there a link?

Yes. Yes, there is.

Trauma and abuse also tend to be heavily linked to personality disorders, especially narcissism and Borderline Personality Disorder. There’s also reason to believe that many right-wingers have NPD or similar disorders as part of their lack of empathy.

The end result? You have a bunch of people with zero empathy chasing a “high” that makes them feel hot, desired, or just more important than others. Or maybe they’re chasing a high that kills the pain they feel.

Regardless, people in high-pressure, high-power, empathy-draining positions who already have issues tend to do fucked up shit when they decide to “cut loose.” They’re never satisfied because they tend to feel empty all the time.

There are several ways I learn about people: through dining with them, through their party methods, and through seeing how they treat others when no one is watching. Partying tells you how they see themselves among others, how they blow off steam, and (depending on the party) how messed up they are in the head.

I guess what I’m saying is that there’s a reason you don’t hear about these scandals among leftists too often. We’re more likely to hurt ourselves with drugs and alcohol than we are to hurt others as a way to get a thrill.

In a word, having empathy is a sign of having a healthy mind. Politicians and spies tend to lack empathy. So of course, the way they blow off steam won’t have the safeguards of decency that a lot of others have.

‘Nuff said.