WTF is this forum coming to? Awesome discussions on life, the universe & everything!

Your sexuality is an important part of your identity. Ask any man who is impotent, or who lost his penis to penile cancer. Ask any woman who has lost a breast to breast cancer, or her vulva to pelvic exenteration for advanced abdominal cancer.

Hence your sexual orientation defines you as well. You will not be aware of it much, because you are in the mainstream majority and hence have no cause to. Nobody is making a big deal about you being heterosexual; you are accepted in your church community without problem. You don't have to wrestle with how you feel is "right" or "wrong", you never had to come out to your parents and worry how they'll react to that. You don't have to deal with prejudice in that aspect of your life.

Homosexuals and bisexuals are acutely aware of how their sexual orientation defines them and how society defines them because of it.

That is true, but most people would struggle to make that separation. I think that most people who disapprove of homosexuality don't really think much about the logic or validity of their reasons.

 

I have no gripe with this; sexuality is not sexual orientation.

I agree wholeheartedly, but that's societal prejudice and discrimination, not actual definition. People who define (read: pigeonhole) others by their sexual orientation are missing the point entirely - that's why we hear "Don't judge me by my sexual orientation; get to know me and judge me as a person." This, in my opinion, furthers my point that sexual orientation has virtually nothing to do with a person's identity; knowing that they are gay is not knowing them any more than knowing that a person is straight is knowing them. Identity is unique; sexual orientation is not.

Incidentally I have met a guy who lost his testicles to cancer, and what does he say? He's still the same guy. Has his identity changed or even been affected? Not at all...in his own words (again), he's still the same guy. I would argue that you're talking about people's sense of self esteem, dignity and pride; that's not identity.

I find it sad that there are so many religious people who basically hate "gays." They are clueless.

 

What is interesting to me as a bisexual woman is the prejudice within the gay community. Often bisexuals are told we're just to cowardly to declare we're gay or lesbian. We can be viewed with suspicion by the very community we'd expect to have full acceptance. Even parents, friends and relatives can use it against you by saying "it's a phase" or that you can make a choice to not be attracted to the same sex since you're attracted to the opposite (as my mother did when I was 35 -- first girlfriend at 18.)

Another issue is how some people assume bisexuals are promiscuous and/or massively involved in swinging and group sex. <sigh> Um no. At least not this one. Whether this varies based on age and other factors, I do not know. It has been shown in some studies that women's sexuality tends to be more fluid than men, however.

Anyway, I realize this wasn't completely on point for the conversation. I had to comment after reading Nexxo's post though!

 

Many people do not seem to know the definition of "hate" anymore they seem to know the definition of "disaster". Most people have (thankfully) never experienced the feeling of hate, both of these words are frown around these days without people knowing what they actually mean. It's ridicules.

Replace the word "hate" with "dislike", that would be more accurate I would think.

Edit:
The word disaster, hmm, reminds me of when I was at a party once were a woman had spilt red wine over her dress and cried out " damnnit, what a disaster". No, an example of a disaster would be a Tsunami hitting an island killing thousands of people.


That . Would be in the category of a disaster.

 

I would have to disagree with you on this point Lenny. I know and have done for a number of years a lady who has lost both her breasts to breast cancer. Her world fell apart and she constantly complained about the fact she has lost her sense of identity. In her mind, being a woman, a (in her words) Full woman, means all bits present and correct, and without that, she felt as though she had lost her identity as a woman. I dont think she lacks esteem dignity or pride, but maybe has a slightly different understanding of identity.

Potentially this could be a case of arguing semantics - but with that I guess each persons individual take on what defines identity and what identity is to us personally is going to play a big part in someones emotions towards identity.

I think it is a bit of an onion, it has many many layers.

 

Brief question: does he have silicone prosthetic testicles?

 

Except for that Shichibukai makes no claim to not have anything against homosexuals, this entire time he's been bringing up [misguided] arguments against them. What he doesn't claim to do is hate. This word keeps being replaced with synonyms like intolerance but cannot be fully understood by any word other than hate. What words like intolerance, disapproval, condemnation and the like don't cover is the intense hostility included with hate. Shichibukai does not seem to be hateful.

My reasoning for this is that the various prejudices have been spread with the belief that they were true and were arguments against homosexuals, arguments made because this is a discussion on the validity of homosexuality. As someone who is against homosexuality it's only natural for him to make arguments which attempt to explain why homosexuality is wrong, and when you're saying someone is wrong you stand a good chance of being insulting or damaging. The key, though, is that these claims aren't pulled out randomly for the sake of attacking others and contain no ill-will or hostility (again, beyond the typical disdain which drives someone to argue against something).

Misguided, closed minded, perhaps intolerant (though I agree with Lenny that tolerance is a myth as you rarely see true intolerance or tolerance) all could very well apply, but when we're dealing with touchy subjects such as homosexuality it's all too easy to start painting people as hateful monsters for disagreeing. It reminds me of thehippoz, extremely homophobic and more than willing to spread stereotypes, but not hateful.

 

I disagree. He does not say outright that he hates homosexuals, but he does make them out to be significantly more likely to molest children. It seems a bit too similar to blood libel to me. You can almost hear the cry: "Won't somebody think of the children?!?".

The worst accusation you can level at someone, worse than murder, is that of being a child sexual abuser. It preys on people's deepest fears of not being able to protect their children and creates a strong public reaction. In health and social services you learn not to make such accusations lightly, even when you have serious grounds for suspicion.

So when someone casually accuses a whole minority group of such proclivities, he should at least have double and triple-checked his facts and sources. But Shishibukai didn't. He was not examining this with detached objectivity he proclaims; he was ready to believe it because it was a natural fit with his opinion of gays. To make such allegations notorious for whipping up public hysteria but then stating that he is not homophobic is simply not convincing, sorry.

 

WRONG, so so very wrong.

Straight people have sex, gay people sex- the only difference is the hole each group puts it in ( or not actually... ) Your notion of what it means to act Gay is totally different to the reality of being Gay- welcome to the 21st century.

It is part of who you are, and how you express that is borne out in your sexual practices partly too- sorry if you don't like it, but that's an undeniable fact. Many straight men are very effeminate and bitchy, many gay men are hard as nails and straight talking ( you never watched Will & Grace I'm guessing ); that is as much to do with who they are as anything else, but there is no reason to say that being a gay person and practising gay activities is not part of who they are. You seem to be very narrow minded and not open to different ideas about what defines a person & makes them, them.

Your moral value is your prejudice. I could say I don't believe women should work because they are meant to stay at home and raise the kids, since that is what they are good at & it is the mans job to go out and provide for the family. Many people would agree, but many more would say my ideals are morally prejudiced and out of touch with the modern world. Which is exactly the case with religious teaching.

If the bible said that homosexuality was just great and it is no business of anyone else decide if it is wrong or right, you'd support that viewpoint too most likely- any prejudice you had would be based on personal feelings rather than as a result of mental & moral conditioning ( brain washing, by the church ).

 

Not trying to derail...


http://www.neuticles.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuticles

 

Bisexuals are just not understood, all i know is i'm sexually attracted to women and men equally, i am not promiscuous in any sense either, opportunities though for female relationships are limited in my circle, where males seem limitless.

 

Nah, Bi girls are just greedy; stop trying to turn other girls gay, leave some for us men!

Spoiler

( I'm joking ofcourse )

 

The question leads up to an argument. If the man who lost his testicles has prosthetic replacements, I would argue that his testicles --and all their associations with gender and sexuality-- are an important part of his identity for him. I'm sure that after quite a bit of psychological adjustment he may have achieved the functional psychological position that "I'm still the same guy", but I bet he had to work at it. It's not where he started out.

 

Ok, well I fell asleep at page 12.

Everyone bickers, no need to sprinkle it with bull-crap. Yes, thats what I've just read. And I refuse to read the rest of it. Some people are just set in there ways, thats all there is to it.

All know is I don't come on here to read bout the biology of a mans testicles or to read about people whining about out of hand arguments. I mean it's not like you people meet up or anything.

 

Then don't comment, this is the serious discussion section which is where you would expect to find long detailed posts that actually have some thought put into them.

 

Going from childish banter to discussing peoples views on homosexuality is more hilarious than it is serious frankly. The thread is titled WTF is this forum coming to? Right, well it's a forum, it's going to have a mixed bag, and every forum has it's left wingers. People just notice it at different intervals.

Then again you asking me not to comment is exactly what starts threads like these in the first place. Thanks though

 

Trust me it is a serious conversation, the original thread took a strange turn and has looped back on itself a few times now. Nothing hilarious about that.

 

I feel like simply dismissing sexuality as a genetic quirk is slightly short sighted. I will, if I may, use the example of liking cheese (the dairy product, not any other euphemism for it). There exist people n the world who like cheese and there exists a small minority who don't (and there are some who are allergic or intolerant to it). Liking cheese is the 'natural' thing as it is based off of milk but in reality it makes little difference in modern society whever you like it or not. Your taste for cheese is not entirely down to your genetics, it's a combination of genetic and environmental factors, there is no cheese gene.

Of course, the genetic predisposition to either sexuality is likely much stronger than a predisposition to liking cheese (effectively homosexuality is 'lethal' in genetic terms) but my point is that it isn't the simple binary Yes/No that lots of people talk about. I believe that sexuality is determined by a combination of factors, just like every other aspect of us (even apparently static factors such as the length of your arm which are still subject to non-genetic factors through our development). This doesn't mean we choose our sexuality, anymore than we choose how much we like cheese, it's just part of who we are.

I don't know why it even matters anyway. The only, perhaps-slightly-plausable-in-the-right-frame-of-reasoning-and-only-if-you're-some-kind-of-human-survivalist, argument I've heard against homosexuality is the fact that they're effectively sterile, but that probably acts more in their favour than against as the world currently stands.

 

That's a not unreasonable (and quite healthy) viewpoint. This is just Serious Discussion, where people like to pontificate and debate. We often learn a thing or two along the way and I feel that I have certainly adjusted my views on occasion. Thread-jacking occurs regularly, especially when the original topic was boring or irrelevant, and sometimes can serendipitously lead to interesting stuff.

Any sensible geek probably sticks to the hard-core computer end of the forums.

 

actually the thread is titled "WTF is this forum coming to? Awesome discussions on life, the universe & everything! " we're onto the second part now, but that part was obviously covered after page 12.