Deviants, Inc.

In case you missed it, the February 2000 cover of Rolling Stone magazine sent an unmistakable wakeup call, a message from the Land of Deviants to Main Street America: Times have changed. There, on display at newsstands from coast to coast, was a photo of the New American Family, looking for all the world like a Norman Rockwell painting retouched by Charles Addams. Grouped together in loving bliss were David Crosby and his wife, Jan; Melissa Etheridge and her life partner, Julie Cypher; and two children. The kids, it turns out, were the biological offspring of a test-tube sexual dalliance between genetic material belonging to the honey-voiced Mr. Crosby and the striking Ms. Cypher.

Outrageous? Not the photo. Shocking? Not the test-tube babies. If anything raised readers' eyebrows, it was the lesbian couple's choice of Mr. Crosby as sperm donor. Who would pick a balding, overweight, recovered cocaine addict whose past penchant for recreational pharmaceuticals had already necessitated a lifesaving liver transplant? The whole ensemble was wholesome Americana and just plain weird. Deviance was knocking loud and clear on the door of Main Street America. Interestingly, Main Street America was answering it.

It was a measure of how far we've traveled and how fast. When most of us were kids, American families -- even show-business families -- still looked more like Ozzie, Harriet, David, and Ricky Nelson than a test tube full of promiscuous proteins. Harriet wasn't leaving Ozzie for a lesbian partner. In fact, Harriet didn't even know any lesbians. Ozzie didn't stroll around randomly donating sperm to his friends down the block just because they hoped that his musical talent might be passed along. After all, Ozzie and Harriet slept (chastely, apparently) in separate beds. Despite their sleeping arrangements, they somehow managed to be the biological, legally wed, faithfully heterosexual parents of David and Ricky. And if either Mr. or Mrs. Nelson had wandered away with different sexual partners of any preference -- on-screen or off -- their show would have been canceled instantly.

So what happened in the years between Ozzie and Harriet and David, Jan, Melissa, and Julie? Somewhere along the line, deviance jumped out of the shadows and into the driver's seat. Change not only happened faster, it happened in odder and odder ways. Meanwhile, the fabric of society and business became inherently more deviant. Once upon a time, the William Morris Agency represented society's elite. By contrast, it now has among its clients Jim Rose, proprietor of the most notorious freak show in America, the Jim Rose Circus, replete with transvestite wrestlers and a program of self-mutilating entertainers. Another William Morris client, the Genitorturers, is a hard-rock band that routinely performs "stitchings" (think S&M instead of R&B) on members of the audience who crawl onstage hoping to be degraded. It doesn't stop there.

Do a quick scan of the relationship between the criminal-justice system and the social register. There was a time not so long ago when pimps were women-abusing scum who clung to the bottom rung of the social ladder. Today, they are the subjects of flattering HBO specials. Gangsters used to be criminals who took off on crime sprees and lived to be hunted by the law. Today, "gangsta-ism" is a prerequisite to having a Top 40 hit (not to mention your own record label).

The list of "used to be"s versus "is now"s could go on almost indefinitely -- but you get the idea. Things, large and small, legal and illegal, public and private, business and pleasure, have taken a decided turn for the weird. In December 1911, future IBM CEO Thomas J. Watson Sr. wrote down the word "T-H-I-N-K" as a slogan to rally the sales and advertising departments of the National Cash Register Co. Almost 86 years later, on September 28, 1997, Apple launched its "Think different" ad campaign. Today, the best advice anyone in business could heed would be, "Think deviant."

Here's the raw truth: Deviance is the source of all innovation. It's the wellspring of new ideas, new products, new personalities, and, ultimately, new markets. It can be a force for good or for evil (and sometimes both). In its purest sense, deviance is really nothing more -- or less -- than any one of us taking one measurable step away from the middle of the road. Extend that step once more, and you'll find yourself moving from the comfort of the accepted into the fast-paced world of the trendsetter. Take another small step, and you'll land in the rarified realm of the ultracool avant-garde. Venture one hesitant step further, and you are in the sometimes seductive, more often frightening world of the cultist and the fanatic. Dare to take that last lone step, and you'll crash head-on into the heart of social darkness: the world of naked, pure, unabashed, and largely frightening deviance.