Love Quote by Molly Ivins

Texas pride is usually sold as a birthright, a loud, public virtue. Molly Ivins flips it into something closer to a guilty pleasure: "a harmless perversion", shared only "with consenting adults". The joke lands because it borrows the language of taboo and consent to talk about the most socially approved thing in Texas: loving Texas. That reversal is her signature move as a journalist and satirist - using mock-earnest confessional tone to puncture civic machismo without lapsing into scorn.

The specific intent is twofold. She’s signaling affection for the place while refusing to join the cult of it. Ivins isn’t rejecting Texas; she’s rejecting Texas-ness as compulsory performance. By calling her love "harmless", she implies the real perversions are the harmful ones that hide behind the flag: sanctimony, bullying politics, swagger mistaken for virtue.

The subtext is about social pressure. In a state where identity can feel like an enforced uniform, she treats devotion as something private, negotiated, and conditional. "Consenting adults" is a sly jab at moral policing: the same culture that wants to regulate private behavior demands public displays of allegiance. Ivins answers with consent and boundaries.

Context matters: she wrote through decades when Texas conservatism was becoming a national brand, complete with mythmaking and grievance. Her line keeps the romance of Texas while refusing the propaganda. It’s humor as both shield and scalpel: affectionate, but unbiddable.