by Travis Mateer
I’m trying to decided what topic to write about for my Western Montana News article next week and right now the culture war being fought by BOTH sides of the political divide is what I’m settling on, so consider this post the appetizer.
A couple of tweets from a local freelance writer with bylines in national publications got me thinking about the culture war in Montana and who is fighting it on the liberal side of the divide. Here’s a little bit about Dan Brooks before we get to his tweets:
Now that we have a sense of Dan’s bonafides, let’s see what this cultured writer has to say about the dumb Montana people he has to endure.
Moving on, another tweet caught my eye this morning because the twat tweeting, Billy McWilliams, is so oblivious to the ubiquitous nature of the culture war that he doesn’t understand why Tim Sheehy would link housing to gender studies.
To assist Billy’s understanding I responded with a link to this post I wrote last June about the Missoula Organization of Realtors PRIDE housing initiative that featured this quote (emphasis mine):
Pride Month offers an opportunity for local organizations and businesses to show support for the LGBTQ+ Community Center, and the Missoula Organization of Realtors (MOR) is one of the biggest fundraisers for Pride Weekend.
MOR raised $30,000 for The Western Montana Community Center. This is MOR’s second year supporting Pride Weekend by calling on their community partners to donate.
…
The donation is a part of MOR’s Homes for All initiative, which, in partnership with Homeward, works to break down the various barriers people may encounter when looking for housing.
“This initiative, supporting homes for all, supporting Pride and The Community Center here is all about showing that when you’re working with a realtor from the Missoula Organization of Realtors, you don’t have to have that fear of discrimination,” Karen Berg-Digangi, Chair of the Diversity Equity and Inclusion Committee, says. “Every human should deserve the opportunity to get access to housing without worrying that who they are, whether the color of their skin, their gender identity, their sexual orientation–that that’s not an additional barrier.”
Is Billy McWilliams a culture warrior? Or, more likely, is Billy just a savvy business man who makes money off selling people sex toys?
Sex in the city is back.
A new adult store named Erotique opened this week in the same small space where Ms. Kitty’s Adult Store closed its doors three weeks ago after 26 years as downtown Bozeman’s only sex shop.
Billy McWilliams, 47, who managed Ms. Kitty’s for 20 years, is the new owner of Erotique at 12 N. Willson Ave. He said it will be a more cleaned-up, upscale, female-friendly version of the old store.
“We want it to be nice, but still naughty,” McWilliams said. “We want to have a positive sexuality store. … More modern, more healthy, more bright.”
First, I had no idea that before 2007 no one was having sex in Bozeman, but thanks to Billy, people are fucking again! Isn’t the great?
Another thing that’s great for accelerating one’s sex drive is METH. So, in a perverse way, the drug epidemic sweeping the nation must be good for Billy’s business. I mean, if drug addicts in Missoula are constructing homeless sex swings with newly purchased sex gear from Adult Fantasy, it’s only natural to assume similar actions are happening a few hundred miles east on I-90.
I’d like to say more, but I’m going to save it for Thursday’s piece at Western Montana News. Until then, please consider donating to Travis’ Impact Fund (TIF).
Thanks for reading!