Sweets for My Sweet, Sugar for My Honey: Pour Some Sugar on Me (Part 2/4)

A strange and weirdly connected tale of Willy Wonka, Skittles®, The Trayvon Martin Murder,

and the Toronto Maple Leafs Hockey Team Scandal

Rainbow Politics

I mentioned in Part 1 [The Candy Man Can!] that like the color purple, the rainbow is also an emblem of Gay Pride. It appears irrefutable at this point that Ride the Rainbow candy giant Skittles® welcomes the association of its trademark with Gay Pride, otherwise the corporation would distance itself from the implications. If these associations are unwanted, company attorneys might at least issue a stern warning to Gay Pride activists to stop the unauthorized use of the rainbow trademark, in the same way that Kleenex® brand tissues and Xerox® brand copiers are so very protective of their branding as Kleenex® and Xerox®.

The fundamental question for purposes of our inquiry is whether Skittles® is actively promoting the LGBT Agenda and, if so, should we be concerned? Indeed, Skittles® is promoting the LGBT Agenda and not in a casual way, as we shall see. Some activists are rightly concerned about this in that the LGBT Agenda is heavily impacting our culture here at home and, even more importantly, influencing US foreign policy abroad. Now, that’s some CLOUT!

Precisely how does Skittles® promote the LGBT Agenda? For several seasons now, Skittles® has featured an extended advertising theme issuing a call to action focusing on the rainbow. If the rainbow refers to the LGBT community, then Skittles® is urging young consumers to Touch the Rainbow, Taste the Rainbow, Ride the Rainbow, and even Deceive the Rainbow. Deceive the Rainbow is Skittles®’ latest oddly-styled marketing campaign that revolves around a disturbing television commercial in which an adolescent girl is making out with a walrus. Is Skittles® subtly advocating interspecies mating rituals concealed as outré humor? Truly, one must ask the question.

 

 

Skittles: What the Devil Is it?

 

Skittles is the forerunner of ten-pins or bowling, a game in which the players thrust a ball—having holes into which the fingers are inserted—down a long alley to strike the intended target in an explosion of flying pins to achieve a score. The pin or skittle is shaped somewhat like a vase with a long neck and a knob at the top of the pin. Especially interesting to me was the discovery that bowling balls originally had only two holes. As we so often find in sports, the terms used above to describe the game of bowling lead a double life as sexual metaphors.

 

The etymology of the word skittles is quite fascinating, at least to those with an interest in linguistics. For reasons related to the continuing evolution of language, a skittle or bowling pin is associated with a key. Keep this important fact in mind, as we will return to it later. Following is the short version of that etymological history, which provides some of the critical background information necessary to understand the interpretation that will follow.

 
 

Linguist Anatoly Liberman observes that:

 

"Students of English have given up the etymology of key as hopeless, but the word often appeared in German and Dutch scholarly sources, in which it was compared with [German] Kegel ‘skittle, ninepin.’ The first vowel of [Old High German] kegil ‘nail, pin’ is the product of i-umlaut (kegil < *kagila), and the cognates of *kag- are well-known. [...] Schmid mentioned it but could not think of a better comparison than Swabian Kag ~ [Latin cavus] ‘hollow.’ [...]. In English dialects, the most widely-known meaning of key is twisted […]. The verb key means ‘twist, bend,’ used especially with reference to the legs twisted by illness [injury, or deformity] Key was then ‘a stick (pin, peg) with a twisted end.’  

Scyttel(s) and forescyttels testify to other Old English words for ‘key.’ They […] designated a bar […] and were thus ‘shot’ across the door like modern bolts [like a shuttle]. The disappearance of [Old English] scyttel(s) is probably due to the fact that it was used too broadly: it also meant ‘dart, missile, arrow.’” (Liberman, Anatoly, "An Analytic Dictionary of English Etymology: An Introduction, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 2008, pp 130-31)

Thus, we have the Latin cavus >> German kegel >> Old English scyttel >> English skittle/shuttle, all pointing to the seemingly unrelated concepts of:

 

•  a cave or something hollow (cavus);

•  twist/bend or twisted/bent (key)

•  key (kegel)

•  shooting; shot; dart, missile or arrow (skittle);

•  moving back and forth, or across (shuttle or sliding bolt); and

•  an oddly-shaped bowling pin with a “knob” on a slender neck (kegel/skittle)
 

Considering the association of skittles with key, an extremely interesting Tweet from Skittles® reads thus:

 

Mention Someone You Wanna Be Close With,

The dude with the combo to the Skittles® Vault.

                Lace the Train Bro/Retweet the Rainbow



This one is fairly easy. In the above Tweet, combo obviously refers to the combination lock numbers or key (kegel/ninepin/skittle) to the Vault (cavus, hollow place).

 

Keys unlock doors and gateways and secret hiding places. Do Skittles® unlock doors and gateways and secret hiding places? What about this one:

 

 

Do you have a hiding spot secret enough for your Skittles®?

                       Encase the Faint Glow/ReTweet the Rainbow

 

 

Can any of these concepts for skittle that we discussed above be harmonized? Is there a common theme, and if so, what is it? I believe there is and hope to explain it all to your satisfaction.

The common themes associated with the root words from which the word skittle derives tell a story. We piece them together considering them as a whole, to form a narrative. When we do so, the occult or esoteric meaning of skittle becomes clearer.

 

Perhaps the best way to explain the relationships among these concepts is to look at how the word skittles is used in modern parlance. Today skittles is no longer associated with bowling, except in the most archaic sense of the word; however, the term has acquired new meanings that have significance primarily to the underground or counterculture, specifically the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgendered community (LGBT). With apologies in advance for the graphic nature of the forthcoming descriptions, I beg the reader to stay with me; this information is critical to our understanding of the philosophy and lifestyle that Skittles® is promoting.

The term skittles relates primarily to the LGBT community and to reproductive and excretory organs and outlets and their bodily fluids and detritus. For example, according to Urban Dictionary, it can mean:

— n. the clitoris;

— n. a gay male or one who is bicurious;

— n. a mixture of semen and flavored beverage, usually juice, that is blended entirely within the mouth;   

— v. to soil the underwear by passing a small amount of feces, as in “You’ve just skittled your pants;”

 

The following Skittles® Tweet appears to confirm, by innuendo, the association of Skittles® with reproductive organs and functions.

 

Put your Skittles® where your mouth is.

Lace the Train Slow/Retweet the Rainbow

 

 

Be reminded of the clear association of skittles with otherness. Recall, in particular, that embedded in the word skittle is the idea of a bent or twisted thing, a deviation from the norm or an inversion or perversion of that which is orthodox. As an example, consider the discipline of Heraldry. This body of knowledge describes all elements that appear on the left of the shield (outside the norm) as sinister. Perhaps there is good reason for that. In the philosophy known as the Western Occult Tradition, the unorthodox or anti-orthodox is frequently referred to as the Left-hand path.

 

Suffice it to say that the gaily-colored Skittles® trail leads directly down unorthodox paths—the road less travelled, if you will, where the path becomes twisted. If it is understood that twistedness is associated with that which strays from the norm, then I have accomplished my objective.

 

Part 3 will explore this concept of otherness more fully. For further clarification of what is meant by twisted and how this notion might help to illustrate the general concept, the links below represent various situations in which the term twisted is used in context:

 

Twisted Oaks Tattoo and Occult Books

Pope Benedict XVI Held Forth Twisted Cross Crucifix During His Installation Ceremony: Adoring Masses Bowed to this Satanic Symbol 

Gabrielle Giffords  Shooting: Frightening, Twisted Shrine in Arizona Killer Jared Lee Loughner's Yard

Kanye West Says Twisted Fantasy Will Have Five Different Covers: First Cover Image of Winged Woman Straddling Him Represents Artist's "Truest Vision"

Dark Matters: Twisted but True

Twisted Aquarian Gospel

 

~~~

 

End Part 2. Stay Tuned for Part 3: Sweets for My Sweet, Sugar for My Honey—Ravage the Rainbow!