In a current thread about gay leaders in the Boy Scouts, Weird_AL_Einstein writes in the OP:
Which nudged a recurrent thought once again into consciousness: gay folks are intrinsically a threat to the puritanical element in society because of the segregation problem.
In other words, if gay sex were not on your radar screen, and you wished to eliminate most possibilities of sexual activity taking place, you create segregated same-sex environments. Boys, and male leaders only, in Boy Scouts and boys’ schools and boys’ dorms and so on. Girls, and girl leaders only, in Girl Scouts and etc.
Now try that tactic with gay people. Even if you switch assumptions and remove all awareness of straight people from consideration as if they did not exist, you can’t create an environment in which every person is of a sex opposite to the sex of any other person present! (Well, not once you have more than two total participants, at any rate!).
So the moment that you posit the possibility of gay sexuality, the usefulness of deplying segregation as a tool for erasing sexual possibilities goes right down the tubes. If everyone were straight, you could put bars in the windows and implement curfews and keep the male folks away from the female folks via segregation, but, if gay folks exist and need to be taken into account, you’d have to monitor everyone at all times and/or isolate people individually so as to prevent contact with anyone else – a task of a totally different magnitude than simply imposing sex segregation!
So, posed for debate: this seldom-commented-on fact is a big part of the explanation for homophobia. It’s why homophobic people seem to focus so much on gay people as sexually wanton or otherwise somehow more representative of uncontrolled rampant sexuality than straight people (including the equivocation with sexual predation, seduction of innocents, corruption of people who woud otherwise not be having sex, and even molestation of children).
AH3: *So the moment that you posit the possibility of gay sexuality, the usefulness of deplying segregation as a tool for erasing sexual possibilities goes right down the tubes. *
I think this is a good insight specifically with respect to the goal of erasing sexual possibilities for children.
I don’t think that preventing sexual possibilities for adults in general is still viewed as a realistic and desirable goal by a large chunk of our society. But we are still very much committed (not unreasonably, in my view, which may make me a puritan but so what) to controlling the sexual behavior of children.
We do still rely heavily on gender segregation of kids for that purpose, and I think you are quite right in suggesting that this is a chief source of the discomfort many people feel about homosexuality. If we accept the existence and normalcy of homosexuality, then we can no longer just assume that gender segregation automatically eliminates sexual activity among children and adolescents. Then what?
Well actually, technically it’s three…you could have a gay guy and a lesbian. Otherwise, though, it’s a very interesting OP. I’ve thought about this issue before myself, and I look forward to seeing what people have to say about it.
Even if homosexual contact wasn’t on your radar screen you’d still eliminate most possibilities of sexual activity by sexual segregation. After all, most people aren’t homosexual. Personally I just assume that in any case of extended sexual segregation you’re going to find homosexual activity from those who wouldn’t otherwise partake.
I think there are other reasons for the focus on sexually wanton homosexuals, males in particular. You don’t hear about to many straight men and women cruising parks and public restrooms for sex.
Given spring break, Mardi Gras/Carnival, not to mention the number of young men and women wearing next to nothing in parks in the city in the summer, I’m not entirely sure I agree with that. I’m also not entirely sure that the hook ups which occur between men and women in singles bars aren’t one that far above picking someone up in a bathroom. There are any number of social venues where it’s acceptable for heterosexuals to admit they are looking for love and/or sex, including any number of ads for dating services I hear on the radio and see on the internet. I see a lot fewer for homosexuals, and I suspect there’d be more complaints about a homosexual dating service than a heterosexual one.
It still strikes me as wrong that people are more concerned about leaving a male homosexual alone with boys and young men than a male heterosexual with girls and young women or heterosexual women along with boys or young men. I haven’t heard any concerns about “predatory den mothers” (and I’m claiming that one for a band name!).
My pet theory’s a bit different. Given that, when homosexuality is under discussion, most of the specific examples concern male homosexuals (as an example, I’ll toss out that Wierd Al Einstein did not mention concern about his hypothetical daughter being alone with a lesbian scout mistress), and more men seem to object to homosexuality than women, I’ve suspected part of those objections is rooted in fear of being hit on and not knowing how to respond, something which women do seem to have to deal with a lot more. If that’s the case, I hate to break it to you, guys, but most of you, from this heterosexual woman’s point of view, aren’t that attractive.
Here’s one issue, however. It always seems to me that when a man is accused/convicted of having sexual relations with a young boy, that man usually self-identifies as heterosexual. Sometimes with a wife and kids, etc.
Sometimes I think an openly gay man in the boy scout campout situation would be LESS likely to molest a boy simply because if everyone know he’s gay, parents would keep a closer eye on him. Of course, since gay scoutmasters are banned, the issue is moot anyway.
Huh? Then those scantily dressed women walking around the seedier side of town are just looking for a nice canasta game? I guess those “gentlemen’s clubs” really ARE “gentlemen’s clubs”?
I’m also confused about the “and women” part… I didn’t think that women, gay or straight, were anywhere near as likely to have anonymous sex as men are, thus the skewed proportion of male-oriented strip clubs vs., say, Chippendale’s places.
And frankly, I hear a LOT more about straight men cruising for sex than gay men, mostly because you only see it in the media in relation to a celebrity being caught or anti-prostitution stings, and in case you didn’t notice, there tend to be more straight men than gay…
I once wrote that, “If women felt the same way about sex that men do, the fucking would never stop.”
A slight exagerration, but I think it’s generally true that the controls against promiscuity primarily come from women.
Since in the case of gays both partners have the male sex impulse, promiscuity is a natural assumption. So the basic problem is that no one wants men in charge of children of either sex, who might be attracted to them. Frex, nobody has EVER proposed that guys oughtta be in leadership positions in Girl Scout troops.
In short, I don’t think homophobia is the active element here, it’s distrust of male sexuality, straight or gay, that’s at work.
And sure, most guys are OK about these things and would never pose a problem. But let’s face it, situations where men are in charge of children are VEEEERY attractive to the Twisted Few who are the root of this problem, and they are willing to go to great lengths to obtain such a living situation.
Why, I’ve heard that some of them are even willing to go so far as to become preists.
i’m of the opinion that the whole problem with paedophile priests has less to do with people trying to get into situations where they might be predatory than it does with people suppressing their homosexuality and having it boil over in the worst possible way.
i think if i were a gay man in a society that shunned gay men, it might be reasonable to try to lead a celibate life, and perhaps “pray out the gay” in the process.
i also think history has shown us time and again the various problems people can have when they try to suppress their (homo)sexuality.
But you’re presuming that suppressed homosexuality boils over into pedophilia when there is in fact overwhelming evidence that one has nothing to do with the other. It’s like saying that a person who isn’t allowed to have pets in his apartment might become a beastialist if he finds a more pet-friendly environment.
Yeah, you got that right. IMO, male sexuality of any type is not really viewed as a positive, constructive force in our society. It’s viewed mostly as a dark, exploitative, destructive force that society necessarily has to tolerate to reproduce. It’s accepted, like one would accept, say, a crippling birth defect: bad, but nothing really you can really do anything about. Somehow, society got in its collective head that male sexuality’s destructive effects can be at least partially ameliorated by the civilizing effects of the females’ prim capacity for moral coercion. Bullshit!
I was with you right up until the ‘Bullshit!’ comment. Unfortunately, this view of male sexuality meshes with virtually every experience I have ever had interacting with my fellow man.
Dunno what you mean by that, exactly, but I for one resent the societal implication that I need the effect of a woman on my psyche to keep me on the straight and narrow, as if the delightful waves of testosterone that fuel my lust belie the notion that I have no moral compass of my own.
That’s a bit harsh and unfair. The presumption, if I read it correctly, is not that homosexuality per se boils over into anything but that suppressed / blocked sexuality does so. I suppose he (Ramanujan) does appear to be assuming that blocked homosexuality is more likely to boil over into same-sex child molestation, and that blocked heterosexuality would presumably be more likely to boil over into opposite-sex child molestation – and I would agree that this assumption, while commonplace, doesn’t seem to be borne out by the evidence, at least not if I understand the things I’ve read correctly.
But if we start off by attenuating sexual possibilities as much as possible through sex segregation, we do block some sexuality that may indeed boil over into predatory & abusive forms; and if we also attenuate other sexual possibilities by condemning homosexuality, we block some more. Then we put the easily victimized (children) in the hands of older people whose sexuality has been subjected to those blocks. A bit more often than not, as a consequence of the sex seg, those would be same-sex children.
There are many many stories of straight men buying dogs to facilitate cruising parks for sex. It’s not unheard of for a straight man to borrow a baby for that purpose.
Of course, when a straight guy does it, it’s clever, or funny, or even romantic as often as it’s creepy. When a gay guy does it, though, it’s just plain disgusting.
:rolleyes: