Homosexual Bigotry

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The more I think about it, in abstract, I have to come to the conclusion that its a societally built control. What I mean by a control is this - trying to circumvent something that is easier than the endorsed precedent.

I think for many thousands of years in many places the family unit was indispensible, procreation was even more essential than it is now (infant mortality was ridiculously high, women had to be stay at home and be child-givers as a career because for a couple to have children to take over their property or take care of them in their old age they needed to have many children to have even replacement rate survival). That and, shaping human life as a pair of parents is very difficult and needs very committed individuals involved (this is not to aim toward the idea that two men or two women in a partnership couldn't do this, just that up until 100 years a go the onus was this heavily set on having all these kids - what would happen otherwise, a husband and wife divorce after they have their kids and leave eachother for a member of the same sex?).

Partly we know that human sexuality is on a sliding scale - women likely much more so than men, though men even with enough rational questioning can shift for the same, many men and women who are purely gay - its hard to say whether or not its genetic, its accurate to say that its from earliest memory in many cases, ie. its involuntary. There are involuntary, though voluntary can easily enough happen as well.

Just like the hippy era only sprung up in the 60's or the idea to do whatever you want, historically society as it worked for many millennia could not operate without incentivising maximally productive behavior (ie. having kids, joining the military, being a productive member of society). There were many cultures of course Egyptian, Greek, etc. who had a great deal of homosexual activity on a normalized level, though these cultures also still married the opposite sex (saw it as a hollowed out contract in the Greek culture - mainly for little more than procreation).

What's changed now? George Friedman talks about in 'The Next 100 Years' the changing dynamics of what better healthcare has brought us to a world where most couples will only have 2 or 3 kids and they don't need to have more for replacement rate. The babyboom of the 1940's/50's was that quasi era in between where the parents were still having historic amounts of kids but with much lower infant mortality - hence the population bubble. After that, only needing to have a few kids for replacement, women didn't need to be career childgivers (by society's need rather) but had the time and means for career. Most of the breakdown in the family structure came from, not moral degeneracy, but the simple mechanics of how technology was changing both the work world and the health care world.

Right now, we talk about gay rights from a much different perspective than it would have needed to be looked at maybe 300 or 400 years ago. With it being so easy to bring children into the world and keep them here - not everyone even needs to have kids. Therefore, this probably would be the most appropriate century to validate homosexual and heterosexual relationships side by side as the paradigm has changed. The only other half of this though is the sliding scale of the semi-straight, whether that could cause anarchy in relationships if cheating happens on these kinds of levels (could have been catastrophic in past history - these days not quite as much), the other aspect then being childhood developmental confusion which, the jury is still out on that one.

That's really what I think though - stigmas were in place in the past for very practical reasons, just that when those reasons go away people are still very slow to pull that sort of tradition out and correct it, I think partly because people partly are concerned with the outcome, what it means, what the secondary and tertiary effects would be of some - quite honestly - major change in societal moors. When people just have a hatred toward gays - that is wrong, it is stupid, it is boneheaded, but outside of the idiots - I'm not saying that the next part is right or wrong, just that when I look at the social dynamic behind homophobia as people call it; I think what I've described is where it comes from and why its still such a stubborn issue even for plenty of people who on every other level love and respect those they know who are gay on the same level as anyone else (less a direct fear I think than really a fear over the 'thin veil' of society). You can statistically or by logic-puzzle debunk that one as many ways as you want but people usually trust experience over rhetoric and statistics.

Last edited by techstepgenr8tion on 08 Aug 2009, 11:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.

No. See Don’t women have “female privilege”?.

I shall briefly discontinue my vacation from web forums to note that I've had quite a similar thought in my head for some time.

Furthermore, what sense does the male attraction to lesbian women make? The more lesbians, the less chance you have.

It's like asking a White Citizens' Council member to explain why they oppose racial integration: there's no reason, its pure and primal prejudice, which (awfully) gets social acceptance due to the championing of religious fundamentalists.

Well, you said I missed something that "most people would think of as 'fundamental'", and that's because they're ignorant.


There are plenty of animals who reproduce asexually, and with modern science humans can produce asexually too, so I see that as a weak argument.

Although it is obviously possible for humans to reproduce asexually it is obviously not a method of general choice. Nature has endowed most animals and humans with physiological reproductive capabilities involving sex but as a very important adjunct a whole system of pleasure and social systems of dominance derived from sex and although actual reproduction is not a minor part, the associated pleasures and hierarchies are deeply embedded in human relationships. Probably the pleasures which are a deep part of daily and communication and commercial activities of humanity are far too deeply entangled with all perspectives of humanity to be casually dismissed as irrelevant.

My point is that it might be fundamental to some, if not most, but surely not all. And that disqualifies it as a 'fundamental human urge'.

BTW,

It's probably something for the so-called 'Adult' forum, but I don't instead *cough* my seed comes out in another way.

Somehow to deny sex as a fundamental human activity is in the same category of denying any function of one's structural physiology. Sex of course, requires (aside from masturbation) the participation of another human and the function of kidneys, liver, lungs and heart, for example, do not. And the non-functioning of these organs is a vital lack which is dangerous or fatal. Sex is special in that its designed function can be neglected without fatal consequences. Nevertheless all the organs are there with their accompanying automatic mental functions and that, to me, seems rather fundamental.

Perhaps I can relate your attitude to my own experience. I grew up in New York City in the 1930's and my schools, Wingate Junior High, Stuyvesant High, and City College Engineering were exclusively male with a girl or two in engineering. At the age of 18 I entered the Army Air Force in WWII in 1944 and spent most of my time in technical training schools and then a final six months in the army of occupation in Erding Air Base north of Munich. I had nothing to do with women in all this time. I left the army in 1946 and it wasn't until my middle twenties that I had my first affair with an older woman. I have never been in the least homosexual but had no experience with women nor what to do with them or how to behave. Now I think back and guess my Asperger social incompetence probably had much to do with it. Subsequently I had a few experiences with women (undoubtedly less than average) and finally got married to a Finnish girl (I still am) and had a couple of kids. With time you might change your mind.

See also: Isn’t "the Patriarchy" just some conspiracy theory that blames all men, even decent men, for women’s woes?

Are you talking about nocturnal emissions? No need to beat around the bush... so to speak...

This is offensive, just as it is offensive to suggest to a pansexual or gay person that they might "change their mind" and become straight, or that a childfree person might "change their mind" and have children. The suggestion is offensive because the subtext is that the person's identity as an asexual/queer/childfree/whatever person is less acceptable or less preferable than having a sexual/straight/childbearing/otherwise-conforming identity.

How would you feel if someone told you, in a patronizing, "comforting" tone, that you have nothing to feel bad about for "feeling" straight, and you might "change your mind" and realize that you're really gay? What if they told you this with the attitude that you aren't really straight, that you're just confused about your sexuality, and that you might be in need of therapy to figure out what is wrong with you? I imagine you'd feel indignant, like the person is overstepping a boundary by suggesting that they know who you are better than you do. That is how many people whose identity falls in an area that is marginalized by their culture often feel.

I related my own experiences. To say to me that I might someday become interested in homosexual activity would provoke my curiosity as to how this might come about. If you are offended by a similar thought then it seems you are some form of homophobic individual. There is nothing inherently noble about any sexual orientation nor anything that disturbs me. If a Christian tries to convince me of his religion and I reject it and he ells me I might someday change my mind I certainly am not offended, merely amused and curious as to what might make me change my mind. I certainly don't imply that somebody must change their orientation, merely that it is possible.

This is in no way patronizing and to be offended by my conjecture is to be frightfully thin skinned and perhaps emotionally insecure.

Hey, whoa. I did not personally attack you; please do not attack me.

That said: what's missing from your argument is acknowledgement of your privilege: you have straight privilege and non-asexual privilege. (See Daily effects of straight privilege and "Check my what?" On privilege and what we can do about it for more information about what privilege is and how it works.) It is a given that a sexual, heterosexual identity is valued in our culture as the "default" identity. People are assumed to be sexual and heterosexual unless proven otherwise. As a member of those groups, you are afforded privilege.

When a privileged person calls the validity of a non-privileged person's identity into question, their statement carries an enormous weight of cultural oppression, a weight that does not come in to play when the roles are reversed. If someone suggests that you might not be straight, you have the luxury of reacting with amusement and curiosity, because you are protected by your privilege. What's more, this does not happen often because your identity is considered "default": people tend not to question the validity of "default" identities, whereas, people with non-privileged identities are frequently asked to justify their identities.

Something that compounds this is that non-"default" identities are made "invisible" by a lack of cultural awareness and representation in media. People in privileged groups are free to assume that everyone is like them, and may not even realize that other identities exist. No one would regard straightness itself with skepticism, because it is privileged, but people do regard asexuality with skepticism.

In communities of non-privileged people, the ways that people of privileged groups deny the validity of their non-privileged identities are so well-known as to become jokes. It's called being "bingoed": when a person "bingos" you, they're using the same tired argument that ignorant people use again and again. See Asexual Bingo and Breeder Bingo for arguments that asexual and childfree people, respectively, are asked repeatedly. These documents demonstrate that asexual and childfree identities are not privileged within the culture from which those documents came.

I encourage you to learn more about privilege, in order to contribute to the work we must do in order to bring justice to the world.

You are apparently unaware of the force of your argument. You did attack me. I responded by speculating as to why. Perhaps you felt my curiosity was an attack.

Woah.. are you saying that it's wrong to have questions about a lifestyle other than your own?
Or are you just trying to gain some kind of "privilege" of your own?

If people from a different lifestyle have questions about your lifestyle, perhaps it'd be a good idea to educate them by answering those questions, rather than encouraging hatred by telling them that there's something wrong with them for asking.
They're not saying hateful things, they're asking questions.
Are you saying that every human being should know everything about every other culture and lifestyle on the planet, and not ask questions when encountering those people? What would even be the point of that?

Maybe instead of telling someone there's something wrong with them, you should find out a bit about them, too! Understand them instead of acting like you're better. You're complaining that they act like they're better for asking about your lifestyle! How does that make sense?