Clowns are not happy with their bodies. That is why they paint their faces and wear big, baggy pants.

If you meet a clown in civilian dress on the street, you won't know it's a clown. If you meet a naked clown, you ...

... still won't know it's a clown unless the clown has a tatoo that says, "I'm a clown," which is rare, because people, even clowns, typically don't like to advertise that they are clowns on their naked flesh.

Which brings us to today's topic: having things my way.

Somewhere out there in the USA -- you are NOT going to believe this -- are people who became so dissatisfied with their church that they took the part they liked, made up the rest, and formed their own church!

Really! It's true! I wouldn't make something like that up, though there are a lot of things I would make up, like, maybe, clowns, if I was a clown makeup professional.

But clowns typically do their own makeup. Why? Because clowns are picky, irascible creatures who want to be absolutely certain that their makeup is done their way.

And so these [air quotes] Catholics [close air quotes] decide they've had enough, form their own [air quotes] Catholic [close air quotes] church, ordain married women as [air quotes] priests [close air quotes], renounce the Pope (that is THE Pope), and still insist they are [air quotes] Catholic [close air quotes].

They do their own makeup before slipping into their baggy vestments and going on-stage for their communion service.

I once tried to commune with a clown. It hurt.

Children grow and somehow manage to live through adolescence and do it without going insane or becoming clowns and spend the better part of their youth focused entirely on their careers, winning rewards for hard work and dedication and obtaining a comfortable and respectable standard of living. Perhaps they get married when they find that "special someone" that makes them feel fulfilled and complete. After they've established a nestegg and the timing is right, maybe they have a couple of kids. Because of their due diligence, they can afford put their kids in the best daycare and schools.

Then they do their own makeup before they go off to work.

Children grow and somehow manage to live through adolescence and do it without going insane or becoming clowns and spend the better part of their youth focused entirely on their careers, jumping from job to job in a vain effort to climb the rungs of some illusory ladder. They pass up love for lonliness until the [air quotes] timing [close air quotes] is right. When youth is wasting away, they seek that [air quotes] someone special [close air quotes] they can use to fill an emptiness they can't explain. Maybe they marry. They do all they can to prevent the conception of children until they have had their time with just one another to be sure their marriage will last and they've truly gotten to know one another, bonded, and built a comfortable financial cushion. At some point, when they can safely afford children, they may choose to have a child, and as long as the fetus shows no sign of an inconvenient defect, they permit the pregnancy to come to term. Because of their due diligence, they can afford to put their kids in the best daycare to be reared by strangers. When they discover rearing children is time-consuming, difficult, and an all-or-nothing venture requiring total sacrifice and focused dedication, they realize they can't risk the possibility of stopping on their way up the ladder or risk having another child that doesn't get their attention, so they have themselves permanently sterilized. Some time later (long or short) they leave the job they sacrificed everything to climb to, and within a much shorter time they are forgotten and their efforts erased and lost to the erosion of time. They continue to live with all the creature comforts until they die and climb the final rung of that ladder with everything they can carry into the afterlife.

While they lived, they did their own makeup.

But no matter how diligent they were, no matter how many sacrifices they made for their wants, no matter how they remained in control and yielded up as little as possible to humanity, when they died the mortician stripped them naked and it was someone else who did their final makeup.

But I digress.

And that brings us back to today's topic: having it my way.

I once tried to digress with a clown. That hurt, too.

I never met a gay clown -- at least that I knew was gay. If I did, he'd probably say it was OK to be gay because that is [air quote] the way he is made [close air quote].

How are kleptomaniacs made? How is an unfaithful husband made? How are pedophiles made? How are serial killers made? How are abortionists made?

I suppose a clown becomes a clown because he is [air quote] made that way [close air quote].

I've never manufactured a clown, well, except the one in the banner at the top of this page. He is exposing his backside because that's the way he is made.

Did I mention how #### titillating my wife is?

When kids arrive for the first time on college campuses for class, they expect to walk away four or so years later with a degree. They expect it because they showed up for one. If they have trouble along the way, they expect someone to handhold them through the rough times, show them some special treatment because they are themselves, cut them a little slack, and give them a passing grade.

Clowns are afraid to be themselves. That's why they are clowns. But their fellow clowns -- the ones in their troop (that's what you call a group of clowns -- a troop) -- these other clowns know them for who they are.

I sometimes wonder about the secret life of clowns -- when the makeup is off and they sit around the apartment together in their underwear drinking beer and watching football. When they are just average joes.

I still don't like to watch football. Or basketball. Or baseball. They are boring to watch. It's akin to watching impossibly old people without teeth gumming Cream of Wheat. Actually, that might be more interesting to watch than football, basketball, or baseball.

Humans are biological creatures that must reproduce to survive as a species. Despite what we would like to believe to the contrary, we are built to procreate -- hence the insatiable pre-occupation of our culture with sex.

Sex is for making babies.

Now, I know that is a head-spinning, radical, crazy idea, but hear me out...

The ultimate purpose of sexual pleasure, intimacy and intercourse is for making babies.

OK, wait...

The reason humans have a need to congregate socially and pair off in a romantic and loving desire for one another and the reason they enjoy and find fullfillment and satisfaction in the act of love making is to form deep and lasting bonds in order to establish inseparable family units in which offspring are protected and provided for above all else, ensuring the propagation of the species.

Hmmm. Let me try this another way:

Sex is for pleasure.

What a bizarre sounding proposition. Might as well say "makeup is for clowning" ...

The ultimate purpose of sex is the pleasure derived by the participants.

Still off somehow...

The reason humans have a need to congregate socially and pair off in a romantic and loving desire for one another and the reason they enjoy and find fullfillment and satisfaction in the act of love making is for the enjoyment, fulfillment, and satisfaction derived from making love.

Wait, that's circular. OK, I've got it:

The reason humans have a need to congregate socially and pair off in a romantic and loving desire for one another and the reason they enjoy and find fullfillment and satisfaction in the act of love making is for the enjoyment, fulfillment, and satisfaction derived from making love thereby significantly improving the odds for conception and continuation of the species.

That's better, but "improving the odds" is, well, odd ....

The reason humans have a need to congregate socially and pair off in a romantic and loving desire for one another is to find enjoyment, fulfillment, and satisfaction though the act of making love which encourages them to make love frequently to ensure conception and continuation of the species.

OK, now we are getting somewhere. Let me wordsmith a little to shorten it .... I won't bore you with the iterations further until I get it down to its essence:

The reason humans enjoy sex is to ensure that they have babies.

But that misses the point of sex, so let me try again:

Sex is for making babies.

And that is what you get when the makeup comes off.