Which part of that quote do you consider to be a self-righteous complaint that it’s grossly unfair to suggest that these feelings are homophobic?
The kindest possible description of this comment is that it’s hair-splitting. You think it’s unfair to suggest that these feelings are homophobic; you explicitly said that.
I will freely concede that calling it a “self-righteous complaint” and modifying “unfair” with “grossly” were hyperbolic on my part.
I think you’re seeing what you want to see. I did not explicitly say “it’s unfair to suggest that these feelings are homophobic” anywhere in this quote:
The only bit that’s remotely in the neighborhood of what you claim I explicitly said is “He’s entitled to his own opinion”. Is that what has you so worked up? Do you think people aren’t entitled to their own opinions?
So you think these feelings are not homophobic, but you simultaneously think it’s fair to suggest they are homophobic, or at least you don’t think it’s unfair to suggest it.
I’m dizzy. I think the only conclusion I can reach is that it’s fair to ignore any more of your semantic gameplaying because you wouldn’t need it if you had a relevant point to make.
You also said it wasn’t homophobic.
Even he disagrees with that.
I don’t believe I’ve said anything at all about whether I thought the feelings were homophobic. I’m not really interested in judging other people’s private feelings, and the OP of this thread was asking about “homophobic persons” not “homophobic feelings”.
I’m not sure I’ll notice the difference, as you’ve been ignoring what I’ve actually been saying from the beginning. I made my points quite clearly some time back. It’s your unwillingness to grasp that they don’t match the sentiments you’ve invented for your straw man that is responsible for your confusion.
No, I didn’t. I quite explicitly said, twice in that one brief quote, that he wasn’t homophobic. As in, the person. And to head off the straw man argument I predict is coming, I also did not say that no one who thinks gay sex is gross is homophobic. I doubt anyone here would deny that there are indeed many homophobic people who think gay sex is gross. What I said was that a guy who thinks gay sex is gross but isn’t a jerk about it and doesn’t have a problem with gay people isn’t homophobic.
You are of course free to disagree with this, but I would appreciate it if you’d stick to disagreeing with things I actually wrote rather than making things up and claiming that I said them.
Agreed: people who make disgusted comments in the actual context of seeing guys kiss are being oppressive jerks.
Honestly and truly, I think the food analogies are valid for this low level of homophobia, if not for the vigorous, aggressive, Rick Santorum level. It’s a valid analogy for the kinds of feelings I have.
“Doesn’t like when gay people kiss” can be a neutral preference, if one simply looks the other way (and not in a blatantly obvious fashion.)
Again, it isn’t a full-spectrum analogy. It’s only analogous to those cases – um – for which it is analogous.
Maybe I’m not getting it; how do you see the food analogy as failing, given that I see it as working?
To me, the lesson to take away is to behave with etiquette when people do things we don’t want to see. The moral point is not to interfere with their freedom.
(Heck, the same thing applies to things we do want to see. A lovely soul walks by in revealing clothing. Okay, it’s nice to look at. It’s alluring. But only a creep stares, or whistles, or says, “Hubba hubba!” In food terms, if someone is sitting at a table eating the yummiest plate of lasagna imaginable, we don’t stare and drool!)
Maybe you should reread the thread. Because I did, just to see if maybe my memory of what you said was in error, and it wasn’t.
Okay, so it’s homophobic but he’s not homophobic, or whatever. In other words, it all boils down to nonsense hairsplitting to try to justify what you said earlier without standing behind it.
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Maybe I’m not getting it; how do you see the food analogy as failing, given that I see it as working?
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The problem is that food analogies miss the whole social context. People who like unpopular foods are not oppressed, and while it’s obnoxious to complain about what someone else is eating it doesn’t play into the broader social pattern of oppression that almost all queer people will have experienced. I mean, more specifically, some creep complaining about my pizza toppings doesn’t have the same effect on me as some creep complaining about who I’m holding hands with, even if the creep’s actions are the same.
When it comes down to it, comparing it to food preferences just fundamentally downplays the effect that other people’s “preferences” have on queers (or, for that matter, women, or people of color, or other minority groups.) It’s not like I have some desire to complain about someone like you who manifestly is not contributing to a culture of oppression, it’s just that it’s really inadequate to compare being someone who likes an unpopular food to someone whose identity subjects them to systematic oppression.
Believe me, I never suspected that your error was one of memory.
I do stand behind what I said earlier, which is that a person who thinks gay sex is gross but isn’t a jerk about it and doesn’t have a problem with gay people isn’t homophobic. I’m sorry you’re having such trouble dealing with the fact that this isn’t what you want me to have said, but I don’t see any point in continuing to repeat myself. Have fun with your straw man.
In other words, “I totally cannot come up with a justifiable defense for my complaint at what you said, so I’m going to split hairs instead.”
I think we’re both clear on where you stand, Lamia.
I don’t like homophobia but I don’t believe in evil, thus no is my answer.
This.
Maybe, as a person with a penis, you haven’t even noticed this, but there’s a whole cultural meme that states the bodies of people with vaginas are sort of gross - because we menstruate, because we push babies out of them, etc etc. You haven’t heard the standard joke that men are reluctant to go down on us (and those who do are doing us a great favor) due to how foul we are down there? This is added to the greater tendency of our society to objectify and treat our bodies as property. And I’m telling you, all this shit gets old. I don’t know why everyone’s so desperate to ignore social context in a thread titled, “Is homophobia a SOCIAL evil..” but there you go.
The general thinking in this thread seems to be that whatever thoughts you have are not a problem unless you speak them out loud (which I don’t agree with, but whatever). But Dan Savage did - he made a nasty, dehumanizing crack that went way beyond “oh, my preference is not for vaginas, would you pass the tray with the penes on it, please?”. And while I am hesitant to bring this up in a thread about homophobia, this comically exaggerated horror of vaginas is a thing that some gay men do (no doubt in defiance of the idea that they must be attracted to women or they are lesser beings) and while it’s NOT heterophobic, it’s not nice or funny and it is sexist for the reasons I gave above.
Jesus christ, why? You know what, don’t answer - I already know Dan Savage is a sexist (and transphobic) dickface. I just don’t understand the desperate attempts of people here to excuse this kind childishness.
This. There’s this really unpleasant undercurrent of misogyny among many gay men, and it’s no different from the patriarchal attitudes that men in general in our society are inculcated with. And it’s idiotic and disingenuous to excuse Savage’s misogynistic statement as being simple non-heterosexual disinterest in vaginas, assimilated (cissexistly) to womanhood. (As stated, it’s not “heterophobic,” it’s misogynist.) Myrnalene cogently points out why: his comments fit neatly into four thousand years of vagina-hate. I don’t want to sleep with women, but I can express this without degrading misogynistic attitudes.
Right. Because he’s a humorist, so he’s trying to express his feelings in a humorous way. Is your position that “I don’t like how vaginas look” is a taboo subject for humor?
You should spend less time worrying about the social context, and more time worrying about the context of the conversation that you’re attempting to join. Because you’re bringing in a lot of shit that nobody is talking about. Such as:
I’m not talking about people “broadcasting their disgust.” We’re not talking about the action, here, we’re talking about the feeling, and if that feeling, alone and unacted upon, can be considered homophobic. The entire point is to examine the feeling absent the social factor.
So, while you had a really lovely sermon about how terribly oppressed we all are, it doesn’t have a damn thing to do with what’s being talked about here. Which is a shame, because it was a really great lecture. Hang on to it: maybe you might get to use it in a relevant context someday.
Except, you know… in this thread.
You didn’t actually give any reasons for it being sexist, though. You said, “Well, there’s all this other sexism out there, and what he said looks kind of like that, so he must be a sexist.” Social context is great, when you don’t have any other context to go by. We’re not dealing with that joke in a vacuum, though - it was presented with a ton of other context, from Savage’s own background, to the reason he was bringing up the subject, to the fact that it appeared in a column entitled “Hey Faggot!”
Why doesn’t Dan Savage want to watch lesbians having sex? I’d think the answer would be pretty obvious, but since you’re not interested in that, may I inquire, instead, as to what Savage has said that’s transphobic?
I’m sure people who tell racist jokes, or sexist jokes, or transphobic jokes, or homophobic jokes think they are very funny too, but that hardly makes the jokes stop being racist, sexist, or transphobic, or homophobic. This was a sexist thing to say; Dan Savage has apologized for it.
“It’s only a joke, ladies! Why are you acting like such a humorless feminist?!”
Yours is not a new defense.
Well, you’ve reached a new high in this thread for castigating people over things they didn’t say. Quite an achievement, given the company.
Whatever. Nice hijack of the thread, by the way. Mod.
It’s not on me to decide whether a statement about genitalia that are typically possessed by women is misogynistic or not. I’m a dude. I was just pointing out that your summary of his comment was inaccurate, by omitting the precise problem people have with it.
Is your position that it’s wrong to criticize anything a humorist says?
As we’ve just established in regard to the “canned ham” comment, you’re clearly not a good judge of what is actually being said.
That’s frankly a stupid question to ask. And sort of a goofy one. I mean, if I privately think the hypothetical private thoughts of someone else are homophobic, so what? If I’m not “broadcasting” it, why is it any more relevant than their apparently irrelevant distaste at seeing gay people engage in affection?
And “absent the social factor” is nonsense. The point is that feeling, due to both where it comes from – a society that teaches us that gay sex and affection are wrong and disgusting – and it’s impact on people, is not equivalent to a neutral preference. Attempting to examine a social phenomenon outside of “the social factor” is just an effort rationalize away the entire reason why people have a problem with that social phenomenon.
Except the person who said it acknowledged that it was homophobic.
So, like, what was that about paying attention to the actual conversation at hand? You’re screwing that up over and over.
He freaking got glitterbombed over it, it’s not a secret. In brief, he described someone who is not trans as trans in order to insult them. It’s not the only time he’s said something that upset trans people, either; I’ve even seen a column in which he used a term that is widely considered a slur.
At this point I almost wonder if you’re joking. Why would that possibly make a difference?
Miller, the TITLE of this thread is “Is homophobia a social evil, and are homophobic persons evil?” so I am totally boggled by the fact that you continue to chide people for daring to discuss these issues in a social context. Seriously, if this is not the appropriate place to have this conversation, where is?
I don’t care about Savage’s background in the context of this comment. I don’t care that he (at the time) chose to use the catchphrase “Hey Faggot!” in his column. How he chooses to deal with oppression that he faces is not my concern. You just brushed aside miss elizabeth’s point because you apparently had no response to it - that making a sexist, racist, transphobic, or whatever comment *especially about an oppressed group that you are not a part of, * is not ok just because it’s a joke. Apparently (according to miss elizabeth), he’s even apologized for it, so why are you so concerned with defending it?
You said “grossed out by”, not “doesn’t want to watch”. I really hope this is the last time someone makes this disingenuous conflation because it’s been addressed in this thread over and over again.
I know there’s been more than one instance of his being an idiot in this regard, but all I have time to google for right now is this example where he insulted an anti-lgbt politician by saying the dude was a trans man. He isn’t. The entire joke in that column is “heh heh he looks like a trans gendered person” and I really hope I don’t have to explain why this is offensive.