Doctor Keith Ablow has declared war on the international, Italy-based clothier Benetton, and demands you do so too. The 46-year old company just unveiled its latest advertising campaign, ensconced within the brilliant UnHate Foundation, and offered to the world six images of world leaders kissing. Photoshopped, of course. But Ablow, who has railed against other clothing companies, like J. Crew, before, does not see a message of love, peace, or tolerance in these beautiful and, yes, shocking images. Dr. Ablow sees an assault on Western culture and civilization itself, and actually sees not only a promotion of homosexuality, but in these images below, he sees “tongues and genitals.”
If ever there were a Rorschach test for homophobic, bigoted, small-minded psychiatrists, these Benetton ads would be published in every mental health textbook.
“The only psychological interpretation of such ads that makes sense to me as a psychiatrist is that the corporate leaders at Benetton literally believe that homosexual sex between world leaders — or at least homosexuality, as an orientation — would lead to world peace,” Dr. Ablow writes in an offensive, anti-gay, anti-intelligence opinion piece at Fox News titled, “In Benetton’s World, Gay Sex Solves Everything.”
“They have tipped their collective hands as a company and indicted marital fidelity, faith and heterosexuality, labeling them the real sources of hatred and suffering around the globe,” Ablow rails. “In the collective mind of Benetton, if religious leaders and political figures would just have sex with one another all would be well.”
One cannot help but conjure up an image of Dr. Freud in Vienna and Dr. Ablow on his couch. Pity the timing’s all wrong.
Is it possible that Dr. Ablow, 49, who has offices in New York City and Massachusetts, is a New York Times best-selling author, graduated from Brown, Tufts, and Johns Hopkins, has a world view that is so small?
Benetton has 6000 stores in 120 countries, and only 61 stores in the U.S. That’s right. One percent of their stores are in America. Does Ablow really believe Benetton, known for decades for their socially-progressive advertising, really made those ads for America?
America is one of the few countries where people actually don’t kiss when they say hello. Who hasn’t seen the photos of former president George W. Bush kissing Arab leaders? When Dr. Ablow’s employer, Fox News, published those images, did Ablow scream that a “new movement of homoerotic Utopians … are telling us, homosexual sex is what matters … and so much of it, in such unrestrained fashion as to unite men from democracies with men from dictatorships, Catholic and Muslim leaders, black men and white men”? Because that’s what he wrote about these Benetton ads.
READ:Â Keith Ablow Gets Slammed By Psychologist For Chaz Bono Column – Twice
Did Ablow — who has compared transgender people to heroin addicts and anorexics, who has likened pedophilia to sexual orientation — upon seeing his beloved President Bush kissing a Saudi Prince, scream, “Our connections must be made man-to-man, with our tongues and genitals. That is the only road forward”?
Seriously, look at these images — which, by the way, include Angela Merkel kissing Nicolas Sarkozy — and tell me you see genitals. Please, show me how bad my eyes are.
And isn’t it amusing that Dr. Ablow “forgot” to mention the Angela Merkel image, one of the six, in his anti-gay hate-filled screed? Given the number of female world leaders, I’d say Benetton got the ratio just about right.
What’s not right is Ablow’s thinly veiled suggestion that a homosexual political leader would be “a declaration of psychological warfare on religious tradition and cultural mores and one that elevates narcissism and sexual gratification above intelligence and leadership.”
Ablow’s religion preaches love, and demands he “turn the other cheek.”
But Ablow demands — demands! — that you see the “genitals!” Ablow demands — demands! — that you see the “wet kisses!” Ablow demands — demands! — that you see the “homosexual sex!” Ablow demands — demands! — that you see these leaders “erotically kissing!”
And Ablow demands that you see his belief – just as he demanded you see his belief that if your children saw Chaz Bono they could become transgender –that you have been attacked.
“I have been asked, why are people so outraged by these images? What is the psychological reason? The reason is simply this: Human beings still know, thank God, when they have been attacked for who they are.”
Sometimes, Dr. Ablow, just as the quote mis-attributed to Freud says, a cigar is just a cigar — and a kiss is just a kiss.
Ablow leaves his readers with this, perhaps one of the greatest pieces of evidence of malpractice — journalistic, if not medical:
“If you are heterosexual, if you are a leader who believes your position demands decorum, if you are a person of substance who believes you should be valued for your mind, not just your sexuality, if you think that countries and religion deserve respect, not ridicule, you were attacked today by Benetton. You felt it. And you shouldn’t be talked out of your outrage.”
And no doubt, Dr. Ablow is willing to not talk you out of your outrage, for several hundred of dollars an hour, in one of his beautiful Manhattan or Massachusetts offices.
