Thank you! Although maybe he means homosexuals “flaunting” their homosexuality by having a parade every year. Kind of like the Irish (but not the gay Irish) flaunt their Irishness, or the Puerto Ricans, or the Catholics or the Shriners. It’s not a lifestyle it’s a parade. Or maybe he means being promiscuous. As no heterosexuals are. Or watching gay porn. As no heterosexuals watch heterosexual porn. Or going to gay club to meet other gay people whereas heterosexuals never go looking fo sex from other heterosexuals. Or hanging out mostly with people of their own sexual orientation, which of course no heterosexual does.* I’m beginning to get pretty disgusted with this heterosexual lifestyle.
*Of course this only applies to a % of both groups, but then that’s my point.
I think you’re misunderstanding what Balthisar is saying, so I’ll chime in with a couple examples from my own experience and see if I’m interpreting him correctly.
My town has a large Hispanic population, and so it’s not surprising that I have a number of Hispanic coworkers. I don’t have any problem working with them, and I don’t think any of my white coworkers have a problem with them. They work just as hard as my white coworkers, and their work is just as good as that of my white coworkers (frankly, they work harder and better than most of my white coworkers). They are not treated any differently because they have made themselves part of the team.
However, it makes some of the white workers uncomfortable when a couple Hispanic workers deliberately start speaking to each other in Spanish when they’re working alongside their white coworkers. This is mainly an issue because they all speak perfect English (most of my Hispanic coworkers were either born in the USA or arrived here when they were children). It’s not a matter of one Hispanic using Spanish to clarify instructions for somebody whose English is poor. Rather, it gives the impression that they’re speaking Spanish so that the rest of us won’t know what they’re talking about. That makes some people uncomfortable (though it doesn’t bother me). I don’t think that makes people “racist”.
For a more relevant example, I used to hang out after work in a “gay” bar. It wasn’t an honest-to-goodness “gay bar” - it’s just that most of the employees were gay men, and that attracted a certain amount of gay clientele, because they knew they could be comfortable there. I would stop in after work with some straight coworkers. We were all aware that the employees and many customers were gay, and we had no problems with that. These guys were just like us in pretty much every way other than sexual orientation. By the same token, the gay men in the bar knew we were straight. We all got along fine.
However, I was offended one night when one of the gay patrons (who knew I wasn’t gay) thought it would be a good idea to openly flirt with me, going so far as to actually grab my ass. I don’t think it made me a homophobe when I asked him to “please don’t do that” (several times - he was persistent). His behavior was unwelcome, but in the same way that similar advances from a woman I didn’t find attractive would be unwelcome.
:dubious: So you’re uncomfortable when gay people speak gay? Thought American homos spoke English.
Speaking a different language in front of people who can’t understand is a bit rude. But may be reflex. Default setting. But I’m just thinking about the idea that being around different people should, of course, make you uncomfortable. That was the idea I was getting at. Really, this is the US, if you want to stick with your own people, better not to leave your room. Hell, even if it’s Iceland, bet you leave your door someone’s going to make you uncomfortable.
I like being around different people. Hell, I spent years seeking them out.
Phase, not to say you should have your ass grabbed when you didn’t want it. That’s a good reason to be uncomfortable.
I once made a similar statement to a 71 year old man who was denouncing the “gay lifestyle.” I also asked him why he would judge anyone’s “lifestyle” by something they did for maybe an hour every week.
I am straight but I don’t want any physical attention. The last guy who put his hands on me and threatened to kiss me after I told him not to got yelled at in is ear “STOP THAT.” If he had continued I was ready to bite his face.
No, it doesn’t make you a homophobe. Unwanted touching is annoying and/or offensive, no matter who is doing it.
What might make you a homophobe is if you think this person’s inappropriate behavior is connected in any substantial way to his homosexuality. There are plenty of straight men who continue to make advances on women even after being told to lay off, so why does this guy’s unwanted advances tell us anything about homosexuality, or the gay “lifestyle”?
It seems to me that when someone in the “mainstream” (for the sake of this thread, someone white, male, straight) does something stupid or offensive, it is generally attributed to an individual failing on his part. But when someone outside the mainstream (like the gay guy at your bar) does something stupid or offensive, you apparently see his behavior as somehow indicative of his particular social group. Why is that?
Basically, you got it. I’m just describing how people are, not what I think or assigning any type of positive or negative value to their attitudes. What’s really interesting is that Kimstu and betenoir sort of just jumped all over my assertions without any real reflection of what I’m saying, i.e., they’re acting like persecuted gays , automatically assuming that I’m trying to berate them somehow.
This sentence doesn’t describe “what [you] think”?
And you still haven’t demonstrated what it means to “live in a fashion that demonstrates that they’re gay.” Are you calling for all gay people to effectively remain in the closet, to subsume or conceal every aspect of their sexual preference in order to make folks like you comfortable? What do you think, for example, of two men walking down the street holding hands? After all, that’s behavior that, in most cases, pretty much “demonstrates that they’re gay.” What about two guys, or two women, kissing in a public park? Shopping for towels together? Attending a gay rights demonstration? Living under the same roof, and sharing the same bed?
Exactly what is, in your mind, a “normal” gay person?
Not necessarily. If you’re not the one I’m talking to, why should I use a language that you can understand just because you happen to be within earshot? If you believe that I’m doing it because I want to hide something from you (as Phase42 suggests), that’s your problem. I’m probably doing it just because I prefer using my first language when I’m speaking with people who also have it as a first language.
Of course, if I’m talking to you, I’ll make sure that I use a language you can understand.
I got a few dirty looks at work, at first, until the dirty lookers got used to me and quit it. It helped that I’m always really nice and I always help out as soon as I’m asked. The main way people have treated me differently since I’ve been out & proud queer at work is women have been giving me gifts of jewelry, makeup, chocolates, poems, etc.
This is in the homophobic state of Virginia, in a workplace with many (ultra)conservative Republicans. One of whom is my boss, she saw me at the polling place on election day when she went to vote, I was an activist in the campaign against the ban-same-sex-marriage amendment. She stopped to chat, introduced me to her husband, and was totally nice to me about it.
Back off; you’re turning me into a {militant-homo}-phobe (as opposed to a militant {homo-phobe}). If you weren’t in such a hurry to assume that everyone’s attacking anyone’s way of life, you’d go back and read the progression of this thread. Early on our friend The Librarian stated, “Homosexuality is NOT a lifestyle[.]” To which I rebutted, of course it is for some homosexuals.
Oops, yeah, I did manage to get in a “when I hear” in there, but consider the use of quotes indicating special treatment of my terms “gay lifestyle” and “normal.” You might be inclined to read those as “so-called” but in any case such usage of special treatment is intended to indicate that they’re common usage even though I personally would normally not use them in such a way. Otherwise those quotes waste space and look like a 16 year old kid went nuts. I hate to explain basic usage, but you appear to be aggressive without any provocation so I thought it was worth giving you a second chance to grok it.
It doesn’t matter what’s in my mind, because this isn’t about me; it’s about prevailing attitudes in general. Of course now that you’ve calmed down, you’ll see that I made no silly assertions (your apology accepted in advance). Now let’s examine the root of what you’re trying to get at. We have a question as to whether homosexuality is a lifestyle. So what’s a lifestyle? (Maybe that’s where you’re making false assumptions.) Yeah, you’ve got your active lifestyles and so on, but lifestyle as a social term is much more about culture; it’s a reflection of mores, values, and attitudes; it’s inclusive of things cultural such as popular entertainment, how you dress, what you eat, how you behave publicly. And you know what? We have a distinct, white, WASP lifestyle as the social norm. And you know what else? The vast majority of homosexuals adhere to this very same lifestyle. It doesn’t have squat to do with holding hands on the street, going to rallies, or having pictures of loved ones on the desk. It’s the same damn lifestyle; with me so far? Of course now we have to visit the “homosexual lifestyle” in the context of it being something distinct from a “normal” lifestyle. Think about the things that some gays do intentionally to be outside of the norm. They’re rejecting the normal lifestyle of everyone about them; it becomes a distinct lifestyle unto its own.
Finally, the word “normal” is a word with a very precise, specific meaning. Being gay is abnormal. Being straight is normal. Being black is abnormal; being white is normal (in the USA). Wearing glasses is abnormal; not requiring corrective lenses is normal. It’s not a subjective word that’s meant to qualify or categorize anyone into groups based on the acceptability of their behavior or condition. Some people tend to casually toss the word around such that “normal” now equals “good,” but you’ll see that I’m always very consistent in my correct objective usage.
From my experience here, I think I’m starting to have more empathy for homophobes than I do for gays that constantly falsely shout “homophobe” every time someone tries to describe how society works. Both are illogical positions, but I’ve never done anything bad to a gay, but yet there’s always a gay that wants to accuse me of being a homophobe for describing the world at large.
I think you’re mixing up the commonly-understood meanings of “normal” and “norm”. “Norm” means more or less what you’re talking about, an objective designation of typical, standard, or majority status, irrespective of value judgements. “Normal”, however, is indeed very commonly used as a subjective word to categorize people based on their acceptability. I understand that that’s not the way you’re trying to use the word here, but it’s misleading to imply that it isn’t actually used that way, and very often too.
Well, what you said earlier was:
I can’t figure out how you reconcile the statement that “the vast majority of homosexuals follow a normal lifestyle” with the statement that “a lot of homosexuals follow a distinctive gay, i.e., abnormal, lifestyle”. How much is “the vast majority”, and how much is “a lot”? If “a lot” is really only the leftover from “the vast majority”—i.e., a tiny minority—then why would non-homophobes be so prone to associate gay people in general with a “homosexual lifestyle”?
Mmmmm-hmmmmm. Funny, I’ve discussed how society works very openly and candidly with any number of gay people, and none of them has ever called me a homophobe. Perhaps you just particularly attract the “homophobe”-shouting gays, or maybe there’s just one of them who keeps following you around? There must be some way to explain this mystery…
zelie, betenoir, mhendo, and (to a lesser extent) Kimstu, could you guys knock it off with the patronizing comments about how gay people are exactly the same as straight people and don’t have any distinct subculture of our own? kthxbye
P.S.: Balthisar doesn’t come across as a homophobe to me.
I don’t see how that follows. I assume your point is that people are trying to make homophobes sound like they have a mental disorder so that their views can easily be dimissed - “Don’t listen to them, they’re just mentally not all there”. And that does make sense. However, a person with a mental disorder is cut slack; we generally tend to blame people less for something they’ve done wrong if they have some mental problem that’s playing a role. In the case of homophobes, however, I don’t believe there’s anyone who would say “Sure, maybe they’re spewing bigoted speech, but they’re just mentally not all there so it’s ok”. To characterise bigoted behaviour towards gay people as a mental disorder would be the *last * argument a pro-all people would make.
Not to easily dismiss them but to set the concept in the mind of the public that homophobia is unnatural mentally ill condition as opposed to homosexuality itself. To try to influence the people’s ability to decide for themselves where homosexuality fits into society.
Look at any other similar term for other classes racist sexist, why phobia instead of ist at the end?
I’m straight myself but during my freshman year of college I dated a “fag hag” (a straight girl who hangs out with the “gay crowd”, and was actually quite attractive, despite the hag moniker) so as a consequence I went to a lot of “gay parties”. yeah. It’s not me, or some arbitrary “straight people” who called them gay parties, but the people attending them. Homosexuality has become, whether it should be or not, a subculture. The parties had a distinctly different atmosphere (besides the guys hitting on the guys, I mean just the social attitudes), different norms, and different progression than “straight parties”. On that note, it’s just the same as “black parties” “asian parties” and “white parties” or “frat parties” (as backup, I once threw a party and was told by an asian attendee that it was the best “white party” he had been to).
I don’t think anybody can deny that many homosexuals see themselves as a distinct subculture. (unless my anecdotal evidence is skewed for some reason, but other gays I know from other sources tend to have the “gay crowd” mentality as well)
That said, there’s nothing inherently bad about a subculture compared to any other. I don’t place any more or less judgement on the homosexual subculture compared to any other ethnic or racial or “fringe” subculture (goth, etc.).
Homophobia, then, to at least make a stab at relating to the OP, in my book would be somebody who in particularly dislikes/fears/hates the subculture of homosexuality. More particularly, I suppose, dislikes the subculture because of its nature, that is, same-sex relationships.
, automatically assuming that I’m trying to berate them somehow.