In my life, that’s been the case. I was out in high school in the late 80s. I can count on one hand the number of times I got flak for it. I had a boyfriend, who’s still my best friend. There was that time when we were threatened by some idiots (most of whom are probably in jail now), and decided to leave school for the day. It was no big deal for me, but my BF had to go to the guidance office the next day and confess all that had happened in order to get a note to excuse him from the previous day of school.
I was a year ahead of him, graduated, and went off to university. Strangely enough, once I was gone, he’d tell me he would be called a fag in the hallway. Neither of us was ever bashed, but the fear loomed in us for as long as we lived in that suburb of Ottawa. Living in Montreal is much different.
I’m not a flaming queen, but it doesn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out that I’m gay. I’ve been out at every job that I’ve had in Montreal. It makes things easier. At my current job, I can email my work faghag about boy problems, and the like. I reciprocate when she has her own boy problems. It’s great. I don’t have to hide. I put up newspaper articles about a guy I went out with, with his picture, in my cube, with no shame. I don’t care anymore. I’m gay, I always have been, and I always will be. Nothing can change that, and I never want anything to change that.
I’m totally happy this way. Why fix what isn’t broken? Because I’m certainly not broken.
No, they work like they’re suppose to. Ya know, erection and ejaculation! Haven’t you ever seen your penis preform? Tell you what, c’mon over to my place and I’ll show you. I’ll even let you have a hands-on experience!
There are schools of thought that define Western society’s discomfort with the idea of sexualised homosexuality as purely a reaction to the idea that one man could consent to, and worse, enjoy submitting sexually to another man (taking as a given that being on the receiving end of sexual intercourse is the passive role, something I’ll happily argue against in another debate). These theories posset that traditionally, Western cultures tend to assume that a man should be dominant in regards to sexuality, and it is the ‘feminine’ role to be the one to be ‘taken’: even with growing awareness and focus on the validity of traditional gender roles, the theory suggests that it is simply a cultural throwback to less enlightened times that a man should always be the possessor, and that our culture feels uncomfortable with anything felt to be going against that grain. We want our men to be Grrr! not oooo!
This does begin to make a little sense to me when I think of any of the abuse I have received (yay for anecdotal evidence!) with regards to my own sexuality - the persons insulting me have little to no idea of what goes on in my bedroom, but the problems people have seem to have with my sexuality have been based precisely on the assumption that I ‘take it’. It is that I might take a passive role in the bedroom which does seem to make a certain type of person extremely uncomfortable, rather than the fact I like men.
From “On the Evolution and Cross-Cultural Variation in Male Homosexuality” by Dennis Werner -
The only cite which comes to mind at the moment (sorry, migrane) and one which goes a little nuts in its closing statements. Long, but interesting. I’ll have a dig around for other more appropriate cites after some sleep but can’t kick my poor swollen brain into action right now.
I meant to say that I linked to the article as it gives examples of differing cultures’ definitions of, and attitudes toward, homosexuality, which could suggest further that our society’s discomfort with gay sexuality may simply be a cultural construct.
Do you think so? Might it be cultural? I still can’t figure out why modern society has difficulties with homo or bi-sexuality.
Someone [an American :)] once said : Your technology might be a bit behind [I don’t agree to that ofcourse;)] , but on the emotional and tolerance side, you’re 50 years ahead of us.
We don’t really care whom recieves, or where one recieves it. As long as it’s desired by both parties; you can recieve in your ear or nostril, for all I care.
Well, I live in a very small town. Only 800 kids go to my school. Maybe it is just where i live, because someone is always calling someone else a fag or a queer. I think alot of kids don’t have a problem with gay people, but the way they talk and act makes it seem not so. It’s probably just to blend in, but i don’t do it. Of course, i’m not one who has always tried to blend in.
