Yes, you’re prejudiced. Who isn’t? I know that I am. I was brought up by liberal, hippy parents who prided themselves on teaching their children that all people are born with equal rights to respect, understanding and compassion. So we all walked around patting ourselves on our backs for our marvellous levels of empathy and education. It wasn’t until I was asked to leave home that I began to question everything I knew about my parents, and what I thought I’d learnt about myself.
I discovered I am racially prejudiced - on looking for a new doctor to register with, I felt uncomfortable that the majority of the names in Yellow Pages were Pakistani. I found myself actually going through the list discarding names until I got to a traditionally ‘white’-sounding surname. I’d grown up in an exclusively white neighbourhood and had never had to even ask myself whether my political views on the evils of bigotry should be applied to myself. I knew the theory, but in practice, I failed. It shocked and scared the crap out of me.
I recently discovered that I paid more attention to my parents’ masked-but-still-apparent feelings concerning organised religion, rather than to their soundbite ‘Everyone has a right to choose for themselves what they will believe in’ ethical teachings. But then I fell in love, not only with a Christian, but with a creationist Christian. When he called Evolutionists ‘a bunch of monkey-f*ckers’ and I finally realised the depth of his belief, I actually questioned if I could be with him, someone (in my mind) that deluded. My whole ‘I respect your personal faith, no matter what I think of your Church (my feelings on which I will keep to myself)’ standpoint flew out the window in a second.
Hell, I’m even homophobic, probably moreso than a lot of the straight people I know. Even after the whole ‘Gender Studies courses, GLB committee, Pride marches, Sit-ins’ activities of my youth, I still get icked-out by gay men on almost a daily basis. I’ll go into this long rant about ‘setting a good example’ for a good ten minutes before I realise what I’m saying and give myself a swift verbal and mental kick up the butt. I know so much better than that, but still, my prejudices pop up every now and then to remind me how much of a flawed person I am.
My point? That by recognising your prejudices for what they are - a lack of knowledge or experience, not something that has basis in the real world outside of what you subconciously fear or feel uncomfortable with - and acting on your realisations: asking questions and listening to the answers (something you show yourself to be doing here, in this thread), educating yourself and allowing your opinions to be clarified or altered; then you’re doing more to prevent continuing prejudice than a lot of people who consider themselves to be liberals, many of whom are more than a little self-congratulatory and complacent (myself included). It’s easy to think you’re fine with everything and everyone around you. It’s a lot harder to admit you might have preconceived notions which simply may not stand up to closer scrutiny, and to concern yourself with finding out more. You have nothing but my respect and admiration for doing so.
Oh, and what Hastur said. Getting poked is AHHHH so very nice. I’ll poke when absolutely necessary or if the need is surprisingly upon me, but generally I’d rather experience pleasure from two of the favourite areas of my body rather than just one. I’ve had man/woman sex on more than one occasion, and for me, it certainly is not the way to receive the most physical pleasure. For me, it’s always been just another indicator that I am just a big homo:D
But I’m leaving work in 15 minutes, so I’ll consider posting that when I get home. Everyone knows I love discussing my sex life… :rolleyes: