Poll in a moment. Feel free to discuss amongst yourselves both before and after it’s posted, though.
Is the statement
I don’t care what other people do in the privacy of their bedrooms, but I could never have sex with someone of the same sex as me; the idea is so gross that it makes me want to puke.
homophobic?
No personal preference. For example I suppose some vegetarians would say they’d puke at the thought of meat.
It borders on it, at the very least.
Did you leave out a comma in your first sentence, Qin? Because it changes the meaning of your sentence if you meant to put a comment after the no.
By Aslan, what do they teach in these schools?
It’s homophobic, although context and tone would matter.
The litmus test is “if I say this around somebody who’s gay, would it make them uncomfortable about talking to me?” This would. You’re essentially saying, “you disgust me violently, but I’ll turn a blind eye if you shut up about it.”
Now, I can imagine similar words espressing a sentiment more like, “I find the whole thing really baffling because I can’t imagine wanting to do it, but to each their own.” The whole “makes me want to puke” bit is problematic, though, since that’s the kind of rhetoric (disgusting, unnatural, filthy, degraded, nauseating) used to justify homophobia.
A lot of violently homophobic people seem to really enjoy talking about how gross gay sex is to them.
Not homophobic.
Phobia = irrational fear, so I think this term is often misused.
A little over-the top maybe, but you can’t fight biology! What if the question was asked of gay people in relation to having sex with people of the opposite sex? Hetero-phobic? Or simply an honest reaction? Having tried sex with people of the same gender as me, my reaction is and probably always will be: eww, weird. Doesn’t make me want to puke and I don’t consider it “gross” though. Just eww, weird.
For the record - straight female with a gay father and definitely gay-tolerant/friendly/whatever the term du jour is.
This is English, chiroptera. Words are more than the sum of their parts. Take the word pornography, for instance. It’s compounded from Greek roots meaning writing about prostitutes, but that does not mean that a free video recording of two unpaid performers engaging in sexual intercourse is not pornography. Similarly, the meaning of the word homophobia has grown beyond simple irrational fear.
Similarly, butterflies are not in any way associated with dairy products
It is not homophobic. According to the statement, the disgust comes from thoughts of one’s own actions, not the actions of others. See the difference in these two statements:
The thought of two men having sex makes me want to puke.
The thought of having sex with a man makes me want to puke.
One is about me, and one is about other people. Lets change the statements and see what kind of responses they generate with out a controversial subject matter.
The thought of people eating mushrooms makes me want to puke.
The thought of me eating a mushroom makes me want to puke.
See? I don’t have to like eating mushrooms, and saying that thinking about it makes me sick doesn’t make me a bad person. But I shouldn’t be projecting my anti-fungal feelings onto other people.
BTW, The thought of me eating a mushroom makes me want to puke.
Chiroptera already touched on the first thing I was going to mention and that was “Assuming homophobic means ‘hates gay peoples’ as opposed to ‘fears them’” moving on…
I suppose it depends on the tone and who it’s coming from. It could be said in such a way as to mean “I don’t care if people are gay as long as I don’t have to see it” I think that’s fine. You have to remember, as accepting as you may want other people to be, they’re still allowed to not want to see two guys kissing, they’re still allowed to be grossed out by it, for that matter, no one has to like the fact that other people are gay, all they have to do is not act violently/rudely/physically on those thoughts. (I think that’s what I’m trying to say).
OTOH, someone else could say it and very much imply that homosexuality is a horribly sin and people should be locked up for even thinking about it.
Also, that statement only says that (again, it seems to be in the tone) the speaker could never be with another person of their own gender it doesn’t say anything about how they feel towards other people that are gay.
To use another example (that I see on preview). If I say, seeing someone eat mushrooms makes me want to puke and I think people should eat mushrooms out of my sight, it doesn’t mean I hate those people, it simply means I would prefer if they would keep that one activity out of my sight. Granted, people generally keep sex (gay or otherwise) out of sight so it’s not a perfect analogy.*
Something else this reminds me of. I was listening to someone on a talk radio show and he commented on how when discussing gay relationships, everyone always goes right to the sex part of it. For example, you ask someone about their feelings about homosexuality and they make a statement like in the OP right off the bat without even considering all the other things that happen in a relationship (shopping, buying a house, going to a movie, having a fight, vacations etc), it’s always “that’s gross” or “how does it work in bed”, or “I don’t care what they do behind closed doors”.
*I wonder if this is what makes it slightly homophobic now that I think about it. People generally keep sex out of sight so you CAN say something like “I don’t care what they do behind closed doors” without coming off as a homophobic jerk since you’re not asking them to change anything while still getting your point across. OTOH, most of those people probably wouldn’t be okay with straight people having sex out in the open either, so, maybe not.
Bingo. It’s not the puking part on its own that makes it problematic, though it’s juvenile and crass. It’s the standard -phobe talking point at the beginning: “I don’t care what other people do in the privacy of their bedrooms.”
The only people who ever say that are exactly the sort of people who do care, and care a lot, what other people do in their bedrooms and care even more if and when we dare to make our sexuality known in the exact same ways that hetero people do, talking about our partners, holding hands when we walk down the street, daring to exchange a kiss where others can see.
If you don’t care what other people do in their private lives you don’t talk about it. This statement has bigotry shot all the way through it.
If this was a thought balloon, I’d agree. It’s not a homophobic feeling. Choosing to say it, however, is very likely to come across as homophobic, if for no other reason than because of the frequency of that stated sentiment in genuinely homophobic contexts.
I think that the qualifier “I don’t care what people do in the privacy of their bedrooms…” makes it somewhat homophobic. It implies that they should keep private or at least behave differently than hetero-sexuals. The rest of the comment isn’t.
Bullshit. Not even close to homophobic. Would I say it to a male friend, or female, for that matter, who happened to be gay? No, that’d be crass – just as crass as discussing vaginal cream and magma of the schmeg to ostensibly straight crowd. Is it homophobic? No, it’s just TMI. I guess I’m a homophobe because I didn’t like screwing this bitch in the ass about ten or twelve years ago – it wasn’t the enemas she took and the shit on the end of my dick, for sure.
If you’re OK with seeing a heterosexual couple kissing, but you’re not OK with seeing a homosexual couple kissing, then I think that falls pretty squarely into homophobia territory.
We don’t know if the person Skald described is okay with that. They might be grossed out by all PDA. But, I suppose that’s probably the assumption.
I’m not sure what makes you think I’m describing a particular specimen of H. sapiens.
The simple idea of gay sex makes the speaker want to puke? I’d say that’s mildly homophobic, though if that were the worst homophobia got the world would be a better place.
I’m straight. I have zero interest in fucking a man. But I’m happy if two gay guys get together. Why would it make me nauseous? That’s slightly messed up.
The obvious issue is whether such disgust is ‘natural’ or whether its a result of being brought up to think its unnatural, disgusting etc, ie homophobia.
I think it would almost invariably be the second that causes such a strong reaction. As said earlier, its usually code for ‘do what you want but I dont want to see anything that even hints of it, ie handholding, kissing etc’.
Otara
I was talking with a gay and a bisexual friend (we’re all women, I’m straight) a few months ago. Just after the Cleveland Pride parade which we had all attended. I mentioned how I could never be gay because the thought of pussy really turns me off and I think it’s sort of gross. I was like “I don’t even quite like my own!”
They laughed at me and told me I didn’t know what I was missing, and perhaps I needed an intervention to like my own body better.
Anyway, I basically said the statement in the OP (with the “I really don’t care…” part implied) and no one was hurt and the only person being laughed at was the straight bitch.
Very clever question, Skald.
It can look homophobic at a glance, but technically it’s a statement only about the speaker’s emotional feelings about his own sex life. He’s not actually talking about “two gay guys get[ting] together.”
I’ve heard much the same sentiment expressed by a gay man about the idea of him having sex with a woman.
Either way, it would certainly be a crass thing to say in certain contexts, certain tones. And of course the statement doesn’t preclude the speaker being homophobic. But no, in itself it’s no confirmation.