Why is a Gay themed magazine Offensive?

Great Debates
1

In this thread in MPSIMS, I mentioned leaving a copy of the Advocate, a gay news magazine, in the break room at work to guage the response of my co-workers. At first the thread went nowhere, but after a couple of bumps containing updates, I was chastised by a couple of posters claiming I was being offensive to the sensibilities of the people at work for leaving gay-themed literature out in the open.

Rather than continue the hijack, I thought it was appropriate for a Great Debate. Here’s my response:

Exactly what about “this type of material” is offensive? The fact that it is gay-oriented?

How does the fact that it contains stories about progress on the ENDA or features on the actors in Queer as Folk count as offensive? How will it lower morale?

This magazine is available in the local Books-A-Million - and it’s not even wrapped in plastic or available only behind a counter like the Playboy. It’s right there, coincidentally (?) beside the Muscle Mags, Maxim and FHM.

There’s a First for women magazine in there. On the cover is a blurb for a story inside about “amazing sex”. Why is that inoffensive simply because it deals with hetero sex?

Why is it not “ordinary”? Because too many people harbor the attitude you seem to have that “gay stuff is icky”. Ideally, the magazine would make no waves. People would read it if they wanted and put it back for others to read. We can’t reach that ideal until we start moving in that direction. We can’t move in that direction if we are content to sit at the back of the bus.

2

The magazine is not offensive. Some people find it so; that says more about their personal beliefs than it does about the magazine.

3

Exactly. Even though the Advocate is a newsmagazine, and considerably tamer than many hetero magazines like Maxim. just that it deals with issues and news concerning gay people is enough to give some people (homophobic bigots, to be precise), the screaming meemies.

4

It’s not offensive at all, at least to me.

It would be offensive if magazines that had controversial political content (like dealing with cloning, abortion, gun control, etc.) were offensive.

If the previous were not offensive, the only other way for it to be offensive is if homosexuality is immoral, or at least more immoral than heterosexuality.

Unfortunately, a lot of people hold the second to be true; thus they will have problems with your magazine. Only if someone claims that homosexuality is just as acceptable as heterosexuality could you then you could point out a hypocrisy.

  • Wind
5

I’ve gotten into arguments with newsstand owners who put The Advocate and Out in the hard-core porn sections. Never does a bit of good . . .

6

I wouldn’t be offended to see a magazine like that in the break room at work. I would probably pick it up and look at it for curiosity’s sake. I think it’s just like what you say, some people get the heebejeevies from “gay” type things.

My question is why did you feel the need to “test” your co-workers? And what were the results?

7

—How does the fact that it contains stories about progress on the ENDA or features on the actors in Queer as Folk count as offensive? How will it lower morale?—

Have you ever considered that the real reason its not getting a good response is because the magazine is not gay ENOUGH?

That it is a fellow traveler, complicit in the Uncle Toming of gays everywhere to death? That every time they see it they can’t help but think things like “this magazine killed Mathew Shepard” or “this magazine’s namby-pamby mere condemnation of the Reverend Phelps degrades homosexuals, crushing their very humanity with it’s overly polite tone”?

Did you even stop to consider that possibility? Did ya?

8

My question is why did you feel the need to “test” your co-workers?

My guess is that he was trying to decide whether to come out to them, and if so, to how many. This may have been a good method of determining their receptiveness to his homosexuality.

9

Well, if you go by the criteria of Certain Homosexuals On This Board, Quentin Crisp probably wasn’t gay enough.

10

Umm… I don’t think most respondents to your linked thread were calling the Advocate “offensive” in and of itself, but were cautioning you that some people in your predominately heterosexual workplace environment might find it offensive and this might possibly make your workplace life more difficult.

If you like playing these games, God bless you, but don’t bitch when you get subtly backstabbed or otherwise jammed professionally by a stealthy homophobe. I’m an agnostic bordering on athiest but most of the people in my workplace are not. If I start leaving magazines around like Secular Nation and referrals to me by others in the office drop off who do I blame? Their ignorant theist prejudices or my determination to express my beliefs regardless of how other people might receive it.

If you want to be a pioneer get used to the arrows.

11

I think it’s fine for the workplace as long as there aren’t any hardcore visuals in it (I’ve never seen it). I’d be much more offended if someone left a Chick Tract! On the other hand, I’ve seen workplaces that think it’s inappropriate to leave Cosmo out, due to the frank nature of some of the articles. I guess you’d have to gauge the general tone of the company to make the decision.

12

Your motives in trying this experiment on your co-workers seems to be at least partially proselytization - you want to bring about an ideal where no one thinks gay sex is icky.

What would be your attitude towards someone who wanted to bring about some ideal that they valued, by leaving around copies of The Christian Century or National Review?

Another part of your motives seems to be to discover what the attitudes of your co-workers are towards your sexual orientation.

Suppose a co-worker said to you, “Look, I find the idea of gay sex repugnant. It is, however, none of my concern. Please don’t bother me about it. I won’t read your magazines, I won’t listen to talk about your boyfriends, I don’t want to know what you did this weekend - please stick to topics that won’t offend either of us, and I won’t tell you how much I enjoy stamp collecting/protesting at abortion clinics/jerking off my German Shepherd/whatever my personal life involves that you don’t care for either.”

Your social experiment has now succeeded, and you know what the attitude of at least one co-worker is about your preferences. What would your next step be? Try to talk him out of it? Get into his face about your life style? Leave him alone?

Regards,
Shodan

13

This is precisely part of the problem. Gay != Sex. You express our bigotry when you automatically equate talking about gay issues with gay sex. We’re about more than who we shag, just as straight folks are about more than who they sleep with. Being open about a boyfriend is no more “getting in your face” than it is for a co-worker to mentionher boyfriend or husband.

You don’t want to hear about my boyfriends? Then why is it okay for you to mention your spouse? If a baby shower - to which her husband was invited - is approriate for that woman in billing, then why should a simply picture of my hypothetical boyfriend and me on my desk be inappropriate.

I guess the real point is that we are here and we don’t want to be on the back of the bus anymore.

14

Wow, Shodan, the bigoted assumptions that underlie your pst are, well, breathtaking.

First, Homebew specifically said he wasn’t proselytizing, so your statement is inaccurate. Second, it interesting you bring up the gay=icky sex concept. Being gay is about a helluva lot more than sex, just like heterosexuality is. Gay people like to have common interests, love, companionship, and caring in their lives, just like straight people do. Do you equate heterosexuality with nothing more than sex?

Hey, we have to listen to straight people talk about their relationships, we have to endure office baby showers and wedding showers, our straight coworkers get to have their SO’s pictures on their desks and nobody accuses THEM of involving others with their personal lives.

Would you talk this way to a black person talking about the Black Family Reunion here in DC, or to a Jew talking about gettign ready to celebrate the High Holy Days?

This attitude of “I don’t want to hear about it” is aimed only at gays and stems purely from bigotry.

Shame on you.

15

Or maybe he wants to feel out whether he can feel free to bring his significant other to the office Christmas party without being treated like a pariah. Or whether he can have a photo of himself with his boyfriend on his desk without being called into his supervisor’s office to discuss “inappropriate workplace behavior.”

16

Yes, but… isn’t the whole point of gay/not gay really about sexual preferences. I assume that most gay men are pretty much like me with the exception of the fact that they like to sleep with men and some (though by no means a majority) have more feminine mannerisms.

Maybe I’m a crypto-homophobe or it’s just a “guy thing”, but hearing a man talking about physically loving or interacting with another man romantically or sexually would make me profoundly uncomfortable, and quite frankly I don’t really think I want to hear about anybodies romantic conquests if I’m at work. It’s more of a “girl-talk” thing. Please, don’t make me listen to any of that crap!

17

Why do you assume that if I talk about a - unfortunately hypothetical - boyfriend, that I’ll be talking about sex instead of simply stating that me and Steve had a blast at Magic Springs (amusement park) this past weekend. How is that more “icky” than if I said me and Mary had a blast at Magic Springs this past weekend? Are you seriously saying that you’ve never talked about anything but work with coworkers?

Can’t you see that the “ick” factor is your own problem that you need to correct?

18

I can just imagine this office scenario.

Gobear: So, Astro, any plans for this weekend?

Astro: Nothing special. I’ll probably watch a little football, plus my wife and I will probably try out that new Korean restaurant in our neighborhood. How about you?

Gobear: Eh, not much. I’ll probably go out shopping for a new sofa with my boyfr-

Astro: (runs out with both hands clamped over his ears,
screaming, "Yuk, gross, ewwwwwww!)

Yeah, I can certainly see how sharing my life with my boyfriend, doing such subversive, anti-family, and just plain gross activities as shopping, watching TV, going to restaurants, and playing Scrabble, really threatens the welfare of the republic and the purity fo your bodily fluids. :rolleyes:

Bigotry and prejudice are the real threat.

19

I’m not talking about pictures on desks, boyfriends at the office party or discussions about your trip to Italy with your boyfriend. That’s SOP for living everyday life. What I find obnoxious, whether spoken by a man or woman is the sloppy stuff about how your new boyfriend sent you flowers but the bastard won’t return your calls. Are you making the right decision to move in with him? Will he think you’re a selfish if you don’t want to be a bottom for him? Yes I am prejudiced. It’s obnoxious enough listening to women glurge about this kind of thing, but to hear a man broaching those topics about another man would be more than I really want to listen to.

20

Actually, what he said was

In other words, his idea was to further an ideal that he valued, and the analogy that occurred to him to which to compare his actions was religious advocacy.

Only?

AceOSpades claims that tracts for Jews for Jesus are "hostile/offensive on sight. " I could probably dig you up a half dozen or so posts from anti-religionists objecting to being witnessed to by Christians without too much trouble.

And do you honestly believe that I have no moral right to object to knowing every detail of your private life?

Perhaps you are an ardent member of the Green Party who wants to annoy me with your rants against SUVs. Perhaps you are a convinced neo-Nazi who wants to show me pictures of your latest rally. Perhaps you are a fanatical bird-watcher who bores everyone to tears with your latest sighting of the tufted titmouse.

If I don’t care to know, what good does it do you or me to force this onto my attention?

I can remember, way back when, when the agenda of the gay rights movement was “whatever two consenting adults do in private is their own business”. Now, not only do they get to do it, they want me to read magazines telling me all about what they do.

The usual half-hypocritical compromise in civilized society is, you don’t try to convince me you are right, and I won’t try to convince you you are wrong. That way, not only can we both get along, we can get some work done.

If you don’t want my opinion, don’t ask me for it. And if you do ask me, and I tell you “You probably don’t want to know”, we are all better off if you believe me. Because you probably don’t.

If you want to put your boyfriend’s picture on your desk, help yourself. I won’t ask about it, and I will be as clear as I can that I don’t want you to tell me. But if you insist on having the discussion, I wouldn’t act all hurt and surprised because not everyone agrees with you.

Regards,
Shodan