NOTE: Some of the content in this letter contains language and themes some readers may find offensive.

No one would accuse The Weekend Sun of pretensions to serious journalism.
You're serious instead about commerce – you're ‘free' after all – and that fits well with lifestyle stuff, what's on, etc. Journalism life, in other words, if that's not being too condescending.
You do give a platform to a favoured couple of outspoken local government reps who provide a swag of letters to the editor (you're even brave enough to publish a few of mine!). Though you don't add very much to the generally inadequate local governance. National politics in NZ gets almost too much media attention and analysis – local politics nowhere near enough. But I digress. This is just preamble. I'm really writing to express this gay man's opinion that you verge on being offensive in your 18 June column, and that your jibes are rather cheap.
They're cheap because you fire them from the comfort and security of the fortress of overwhelmingly majoritarian heterosexuality. Do I need to remind you of the power of imbalance? Folk with my no-longer-criminal inclinations, say 5 per cent of the society, while your lot make up the rest. I venture that there's still more tolerance than acceptance of us from that odd 95 per cent. So you're safe as houses making fun of us. There would not be many laughs if we fired back in similar style, which is why I'm racking my brains to think of reverse put-downs. Perhaps we're too used to being polite. After all we usually emerge out of nice ‘straight' mainstream families who invariably love us dearly.
(Please note: I'm only taking issue with you over jibes about gayness. I'm not in any way defending Chris Carter's hissy-fit and failure to front-up over his taxpayer rorts.)
Though not a regular reader of your column I've scanned enough to know you can be funny, and I enjoy a double entendre as much as anyone.
'Taking the taxpayer from behind”, is cute, although it probably plays on an old misconception that ‘from behind' is the preferred approach for anal sex between men. I've had enough good sex with women to know that gay men have no monopoly on ‘doggy style'.
Do I need to tell you how good it is from the man's vantage point, with a woman? (Though perhaps women aren't always so fond of it because it permits deeper vaginal penetration than some are comfortable with.)
Perhaps more information than you want – but gay men have no difficulty in accomplishing anal sex face-to-face ‘missionary' style, albeit with the receptive partner's heels a little higher. (Hence the jibe, ‘helium heels'.)
I chuckled a while ago when in your column you must have been reacting to some accusations that you were anti-gay. ‘Not at all', you declared… ‘Guys are most welcome in our new facilities! Come, join us at the bar. We'll even push in your stool.' (Or words to that effect.)
Very funny, I got it immediately. I've probably heard all the ‘stool' cracks. ‘Fudge-packers', ‘uphill gardeners' etc. Again, perhaps more information than you want, but be assured on this score: - gay guys who are into anal sex (and not all gay guys are, by the way) do not enjoy encountering stools or even any whiff of stools any more than ‘straight' guys enjoy encountering tampons or any whiff of old tampons within the object of their desire. I'll spare you the details, but on our side as on yours, it isn't rocket science when it comes to clearing the field for intercourse.
So far I've responded to a couple of your milder jibes, cheap shots that aren't too bad, just a bit tired and seemingly based on an old Fourth Form level of understanding of human sexual behaviour, and its diversity.
You win top prize for cheapness – and offence – for your jibe about a ‘kick in the ass, which…wouldn't work for Chris Carter,' because ‘he'd most likely enjoy it.'
Now, we both know that you're only safe saying such a thing at the expense of gay men. You would never suggest a ‘kick in the ****' might be enjoyable for a woman!
Am I ratty enough about any of this to be heading up a personal letter with ‘Formal Notice of Complaint?'
Nah. We're talking about ruffled feathers only here. I haven't much faith in mealy-mouthed bureaucratic balms. So naïve am I, I'm trying a simple direct appeal to your better nature; in an attempt at dialogue; exchange of views.
Thank goodness we live in an age when we can honestly and frankly discuss the whole business of our mammalian sexuality, such a rich source of pleasure and humour! Let the godly wrestle with the conundrum of reconciling it to the biblical assurance that we are ‘made in the image of God'. We can poke fun at the various ways various people find of getting a kick out of their sexual bits. Truth is, it's hared to dignify any particular sexual bent. Who can claim their way is best?
For a start, our sex organs are all multi-purpose. Nature has not wasted resources on purpose built organs meant for sex alone. The penis is urinary excretory outlet as well as erectile insemination rod. The vagina serves as hole-in-the-wall for male generative deposits; as well as drain for old blood and mucus discarded from the monthly uterine seedbed which has been planted with no fertilised eggs; as well as incredibly distendable birth canal for babies produced on the odd occasion when the seedbed is ‘planted'.
Anus and rectum? You are obviously well aware of the solid excretory function, but I would definitely include anus/rectum under ‘sexual organs'. If our creator did not intend us to use these organs in the manner I'm familiar with, then he should not have made it so agreeable to do so.
I think it was an Englishman who is alleged to have declared when he had finally decided to end his innings with women, 'The pleasure was fleeting, the price exorbitant, and the position – ridiculous!'
I don't know who wrote the words, but he must have lived a long while ago, when he wrote, 'Inter urinam et caeces noscitur' (forgive me if I've remembered the Latin incorrectly). Man is born between urine and faeces.”
Meanwhile , it is terribly fashionable for you to be so anti-political-correctness – especially in the Tauranga retirement village fully of grumpy old unreformed blokes, fondly recalling the warm feelings of brotherly, tribal togetherness that came from mocking the fairer sex, and anyone else who is different. PC is such a bummer for anyone desperately trying to be funny, at someone else's expense. You can grizzle all you like, but in today's world you are pretty constrained when it comes to race and gender jokes. But it appears that Big Brave Bold Brian is on safer ground raising a laugh at the expense of my sort of people.
Especially when one of us who has made such a political poster-boy of himself as an ‘out' gay MP has gone and made such a dick of himself over political perks.
Sorry to have taken such a long time getting this rave drafted and posted.
There have been moments when I've wondered whether it was worth the time and effort, and the draft gathered dust on my desk. But here it is, for what it's worth – my response to a small portion of ‘Rogers Rabbits' of now over one month ago.
Colin Marshall, Te Puke.