homophobia just makes no sense.

[cimorene]

clearly i'm not having a good day, but. i feel like i'm missing something essential to understand it. what's the matter with any sort of sexuality? why should you care more about someone's sexual preference than about, say, whether they prefer carrots to broccoli?

Comments

[hollsh.livejournal.com]

I tend to care about more personality based preferences I guess you can say. Like, whether you're a redneck stupid homophobic or a member of the 21st century.

[jacquez.livejournal.com]

so, this guy who worked for falwell, during the big tinky-winky flap, said that one of the reasons we need to protect people from homosexuality is that homo sex is so much more compelling and interesting than straight sex.

my reaction was "yeah. IF YOU ARE A BIG GAY HOMO, IT SURE IS!"

anyway, that guy's statement really clarified a lot of homophobia for me. some people really *are* serious closet jobs, and when you combine that with a moral code that says gay = not in-line with godliness, you can get real trouble.

I have a problem with the gay = nilwg thing anyway, but most of the people I know who believe that aren't what I would consider particularly dangerous or egregious homophobes.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

yeah, there can't be MUCH homophobia that isn't caused by either 1) religion or 2) strong societal prejudices-norms-what-have-you. i guess what is astonishing is that people are capable of being brow-beaten by those norms/religious teachings into... not thinking for themselves. i mean, having opinions is the most natural thing in the world, and everyone has tastes, if only for broccoli and carrots, and you'd think the parallels would occur to people.

although i'd no idea the falwellians came right out and said that! ahahahah.

[guinevere33.livejournal.com]

As a book I just read so delicately put it, "Lately in the media, there has been a great deal more discussion of people's sexual preferences than of what they prefer for breakfast. But why should sex be so much more interesting than eating? Both are basic to the human existence. However, eating can be done alone, while sex for its purest form of expression requires another person. It is this 'other individual' that causes all the difficulties."

[thisveryinstant.livejournal.com]

i guess what is astonishing is that people are capable of being brow-beaten by those norms/religious teachings into... not thinking for themselves

You know, I used to feel that way...but these days, I honestly don't think that people can be "brow-beaten" into thinking anything. People are ignorant because they WANT to be ignorant. It's a strategy that use to protect themselves and their complacency. If a reasonable argument is going to shake up your world--just filter it out!

[/cynicism]

Um, yeah, so I've been arguing with religious types lately. Can you tell? :-)

[cimness.livejournal.com]

no, what i mean is, no one is born thinking people who like girls and not boys are evil any more than they're born thinking people who like carrots and not broccoli are evil. they weren't browbeaten very hard, perhaps--perhaps it's more like the american native tribes who carried their babies with wooden boards strapped to their heads and it shaped their skulls while they were soft, so they all had pointy heads--but they were browbeaten, shaped, pushed, forced--into hating, fearing, disliking other people.

i don't dispute that there is a natural fear of the 'other' in people, but i think it's culture and society which push us into seeing race and sexual orientation and religion as 'other.' the instinctive response is to class other humans as 'same'--thus cute stories of little children who don't understand race, don't notice it, don't find it important, refuse to get what you're talking about when you speak of it to them.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

me too.

and that's a way of dividing people up that DOES make sense...

[cimness.livejournal.com]

well, perhaps there is a fundamental difference between carrots/broccoli and boy/girl after all. broccoli isn't animate even if it does ask not to be eaten (ask yourself: can my vegetables communicate when daddy ISN'T in the room?).

but i'm still not sure that that is enough to make people, like, INSTINCTIVELY identify other sexual orientations as wrong. it's so very, very counter-intuitive to me. surely people naturally have a sense of interest in THEMSELVES and not other people. sure, you're curious, but sometimes you mind your own business because how interesting is it, really, WHO your neighbors are having sex with, when all that affects you is whether/when/how loudly they're having sex?

[not-fledged-yet.livejournal.com]

I'm responding to a couple of different things people said here...

re: gay = nilwg - I don't know very much about other religions, but in the Christian tradition sexuality of any kind = nilwg, so the only reason why straight sex should be any better than gay sex is that straight sex leads to having children, and that's the only legitimate purpose for sex, is to follow God's command to Be Fruitful And Multiply.

I don't think it's an instinctive thing. Our nearest non-human relatives, pygmy chimpanzees, have all kinds of sex all the time. I think our cultural dislike of gay sex is just that - cultural, ingrained by long millennia of cultural norms. Why those should have arisen is a question I'll leave to someone else, but remember that some forms of homosexuality have been socially acceptable in various cultures in the past. Ancient Greece was one Big Gay Orgy - in the Phillippines (I think) men who identify as women still dress as women, are accepted in society as women, and have sexual relationships with men - can't think of any more right now, but I'm sure those aren't the only examples out there.

and now, for something really depressing!

[thisveryinstant.livejournal.com]

I think people who like carrots and broccoli are evil! :-D

Now that the requisite joke is out of the way:

I see what you're saying. Anyone who grows up in a certain kind of situation is going to be pressured to develop in a certain way.

I guess what I'm saying is: I hate that people are so malliable! The majority of people I've met, regardless of their upbringing or political affiliation, are very resistant to changing their beliefs. In the community I grew up in, everyone is super-liberal. My hometown has a huge gay community, a crazy avant-garde arts scene, a big research university, and lots of ethnic diversity. Lots of fun. I hate the midwest. But ANYWAY...

There are a lot of people who spout a lot of liberal propaganda (a woman's right to choose, affirmative action, etc.), but have never actually THOUGHT about the issues. And they don't WANT to think about them. They agree with me about lots of things--but it's not because they're smart; it's because they're lazy thinkers, and they're frightened of change.

And the thing that frightens me is that, if so many people are so malliable...well, then it just comes down to numbers, doesn't it? If the bigots can produce more offspring than we can, they'll take over.

Of course, you get people from all kinds of backgrounds who appreciate reason, and make a concerted effort to think critically about their beliefs. But...well, the longer I'm alive, the more I think that those people are a small minority. And the more I'm frightened of the Christian right.

i don't dispute that there is a natural fear of the 'other' in people, but i think it's culture and society which push us into seeing race and sexual orientation and religion as 'other.'

I think you're making an important distinction here. People are hardwired to fear the "other"--but it is society that defines the other. As you say, we're socialized to distinguish between straight and gay, but not between vegitable lovers and vegetable haters.

Bah. I hate people. If I wasn't so addicted to the internet I'd become a hermit and live off the land.

thpttt.

[hisgreyeyes.livejournal.com]

Exactly!