This is the backstory of this article. I was dead tired after spending the day writing, caring for Ginger, cleaning the house, and sweating in the sauna for half an hour. It was after 11 pm. I had taken Ginger out for a short walk and was about to call it a day. I don’t know why I decided to go out on my deck and chill for a moment.

Before going to the deck, I asked Ginger if she wanted a chewy, small piece of rawhide dipped into a mixture and dried. Chewy is designed to clean her teeth, but Ginger considers it a treat. I got a chewy, poured a small glass of Blackberry Merlot, and added ice. I know that adding ice to red wine is taboo or, as wine connoisseurs would say, a breach of etiquette. My last snack item was some of my favorite cheese and crackers.

Ginger and I went to the porch and enjoyed our favorite tidbits. It wasn’t long before I leaned back and looked up at the stars. While I rested my body, my mind raced around to decide upon a thought it should focus on. I don’t recall how long the maelstrom of ideas darted around in my head.

I felt like Edgar Allan Poe in The Raven. “Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary...” Next, I noticed that I was in a faraway country. Even though I have traveled to four or five dozen countries, I couldn’t label where I was. However, it was in a picturesque town surrounded by mountains on one side. I was sitting in an open-air eatery. There were a dozen or so tables with many locals.

I asked a young guy at the table next to me why all these people were talking so earnestly with each other. He said that they were discussing their Virgin King. It was apparent that I didn’t understand his comment about their king being a virgin. The guy tried to explain the virginity issue, which went over my head completely. I said that Americans view virginity as it relates to women.

I started to explain that all Americans, including me, tie virginity to only women. Then I added that mindset is sexist. Women are judged based on not having sex before marriage. Our society could care less about men having sex before they were married. I was about to mention how inane that mindset was, but the guy stopped me.

He encouraged some of the others sitting around us to join the conversation. After several minutes, I understood that their king was different. Their king maintained that he was a virgin, meaning sinless. Their king did no wrong.

I was about to go on about Hans Christian Andersen’s The Emperor's New Clothes, a metaphor that everyone should be honest and not lie.

The Emperor’s New Clothes

However, as we discussed their views, several others sitting close to us laughed at their Virgin King. Anything and everything their king did was flawless. Well, at least that was the king’s mindset. There must have been a couple of dozen people gathered together discussing their Virgin King. One would say that many of the king’s subordinates were found guilty of lying and wound up in jail or fined. Another yelled out about his trists with a local woman of the night. That comment was followed by a litany of regular women who accused him that he raped or molested them.

Another local talked about how their Virgin King had been taken to court regarding fraud in deals that the king had made. Some of the fraud dealt with products that the king produced. Others were about charging the locals more than the land or buildings were worth.

After a long session of dissing their Virgin King, one of the locals congealed their dissatisfaction with their Virgin King with this question. “You can’t imagine what we are facing?”