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There is a biological component within human beings to protect those we see as vulnerable from harm. And protect youth from harm. That is a natural inclination. That is not social indoctrination. That is not an inherently negative feeling. Homophobia is. There are zero reasons, literally zero quantifiable reasons, to view two adult men kissing the same way you view someone under 21 fucking an 80 year old. Projective disgust is ultimately a moral and conceptual disgust that develops into a physical, emotional and instinctual disgust. In general, people find it wrong for a 20 year old to fuck an 80 year old because what their minds jump to is "the 80 year old is taking advantage of this kid"..........."the 20 year old is only in it for the perks".........."that 80 year old is old enough to be the kid's grandfather"........."how does the 80 year old have sex". What are those feelings regarding homosexuality? What similar questions, similar skepticism, would a person have towards being gay? What creates that moral negativity against homosexuality? Society.
True. But there are no quantifiable reasons to feel such extreme negativity towards homosexuality. Not even discussing logical reasons, legitimate reasons, for this negativity, but actual reasons with any sort of fiber. There are NONE.
He doesn't like tomatoes because he doesn't like the texture. That's a valid reason not to like tomatoes. You think of tomatoes and you think of tomatoes you've eaten and gotten sick from. Your mind and body then protects you from tomatoes. You avoid eating them, discussing them. You hate watching people eat them. That's your mind and body doing it's job in reading what you don't like and operating in turn. What exact reason does a person have in not liking homosexuality? Being straight isn't a reason..........we have many people here saying they have no issue with homosexuality. Or same-sex kissing. Religion isn't simply a reason............plenty of religious gays and straight allies who are religious. It's not procreation because for as much as Abomination wants to throw out the "gays can't have babies" card, homosexuality does not threaten heterosexual reproduction in any way. Like you said, it's irrational. The problem is that this is an irrational attitude that has a direct impact in harming others, and it is an irrational attitude that is socially-conditioned and can be changed. And because it's a negative attitude that harms both individuals and society at large, it should be changed.
Hair isn't a human being and not liking a long strand of hair on a person isn't actively harming that persons' (the person with the hair on their clothes) ability to live their live as they see fit without discrimination and consternation.
I am intolerant of homophobia. I will always be intolerant of homophobia. I will always be intolerant towards those who lack tolerance themselves against gay people. Intolerance doesn't receive tolerance. That's not what tolerance entails. | |
Internalized homophobia doesn't=homophobic. Slight discomfort doesn't necessarily=internalized homophobia. It's a case by case by case basis. Some people just lack exposure. Some just don't like PDA and are a little prudish. It's really up to individuals themselves to decide whether their biases are rooted in internalized homophobia or not. | |
Whats PDA? And isn't internalized homophobia when a gay person hates other gay people for being gay because they don't like being gay? | |
Kissing is a sexual issue? I don't think so.
1. No accredited organization that delves in the matter of sexuality believes homosexuality to be abnormal. Or a birth defect. And this in fact hasn't been considered a serious viewpoint for 40 years. 2. Not the norm doesn't=abnormal. You're right, 100% homosexuality will never be the norm. That doesn't make it abnormal. 3. Sex is not solely to procreate and procreation isn't a top 15 reason why people engage in sexual intercourse. 4. You can procreate without having sex. You can procreate without being straight.
Bisexuality includes homosexuality. In fact, bonobos are the animal closest to humans biologically. And they are 90% bisexual. Sexuality is a continuum, and most people are not 100% straight. Homosexuality in itself is very normal.
No, they actually are not. But since you think it's OK to be homophobic, there is no point in debating that point. It is not natural to be homophobic yet you seem to believe it is, although you clearly DO NOT have any peer reviewed study out there you've developed that can in any way prove your theory fact.
No, I do not "need to allow" people to be ignorant. Ignorance begets bigotry. Without ignorance, the bigotry wouldn't exist. So to eliminate the bigotry, you need to eliminate the ignorance and replace it with awareness and education. That's the only reason why homophobia has died down in US society. Not by allowing homophobes be homophobic and giving them a free pass. | |
You haven't described a functional difference between the tomato example and homosexuality. Religion has nothing to do with this. I dislike the taste of tomatoes: Uncontrollable feeling of disgust when seeing others eating tomatoes. I dislike making out with men: Uncontrollable feeling of disgust when seeing men making out with other men. The disgust at touching another man may be irrational or without reason, but, again, hair example. If I can be randomly disgusted by strings of keratin, I can easily foresee people being squeamish about a demographic they aren't attracted to fooling around in front of them. That some people will ALWAYS be grossed out by the thought of you touching them says nothing about their character, since the reaction is, and I feel this doesn't need any more repeating, irrational. That some people allow their uncontrollable urges/reactions/gut-instincts control their behavior is not an argument against the urges, but an argument against not knowing yourself and your own biases. This is no different from a lesbian feeling feelings of disgust at the thought of making out with a man (and I have spoken with several women that do). | |
PDA=public displays of affection. Internalized homophobia could come from many different sources. The closet case theory has been proven fact, and at the very least a very large amount of individuals who are homophobic are gay. But it's not all. Many people are simply indoctrinated into homophobia. Some are threatened by things that are outside of their worldview that they don't understand. Reasons vary. | |
It's a deeply ingrained form of homophobia but homophobia nonetheless. You might feel better knowing that you aren't homophobic by choice but because someone told you you had to be. However, it is your choice if you want to accept this or challenge what you were taught and find the truth for yourself. | |
While we're at it, if you feel uneasy seeing black people make out or imagining having sex with a black person, that's racism. | |
Yes, you're homophobic. What matters however is how you react to that, I have a phobia of spiders and dark water, but I don't go around asking for the murder of all spiders, and lights in all deep pools. If you're not going around running up to gay people and shouting | |
I dislike making out with men? Yet, Abomination has I'm guessing never made out with a man. Yet he has eaten a tomato and he didn't like it. So the two are still not comparable. Add onto the fact not all men are the same. A man with a beard is different than a man clean shaven. A 40 year old man isn't a 20 year old man. There are more versions of "man" than there are of "tomato". We're also not discussing the idea of a person THEMSELVES making out with someone of the gender they are not attracted to. That isn't in question. What's in question is the idea that finding two people showing basic affection, not even making out, but simple kissing, hugging up to your partner, hand holding, disgusting. We're discussing innocent affection. And that people turn innocent affection into a sexual come-on. The urges themselves are as you said, irrational, but unlike other urges, there is no fundamental reason to hold this particular urge. I still haven't heard a reason. There doesn't have to be a reason, and I know there is NOT one, but that's the point. No-one has a reason, and it's irrational completely, but also not natural. Repressing said biases effectively renders them null. A person with a bias is a person who openly believes in whatever socially-constructed bullshit they've allowed damage their psyche. People who actively repress said bias are not biased. It's dormant. The bias may be inside of them but it's not alive. | |
Discomfort due to lack of exposure is fine. That's not the fault of the individual, it's the fault of society and history. I chose to share a room with one of my close friends at Uni. He had a girlfriend at the time, and I had a boyfriend at the time. He said a year or two later that he had felt slightly uncomfortable at first, but after about a week, he realized he didn't anymore. It was simply lack of exposure. He wasn't homophobic, because he reacted to it with maturity and it didn't bother him one iota after a few days. What IS homophobic, on the other hand, is people who have this immediate negative reaction, and then act like that's a fine way to carry on. People who say, 'I can't help it, it makes me sick'. That's not okay. It takes only a modicum of maturity to recognize that your reaction is illogical. Don't be proud of your instinctual discomfort. Recognize it for what it is, and overcome it for the sake of the respect you owe to people. | |
Seriously, people aren't tomatoes. Tomatoes can't process information or have emotions. This analogy sucks and it's offensive. Find better analogies and try and remember you're talking about people here. Alternatively, focus some time and energy on realizing people touching and caressing each other is totally normal and not disgusting at all. It only takes a bit of effort. You know what's truly disgusting, biting your nails. You don't want to know the kind of filth you accumulate there. | |
Let's pick some normalities, since there are multiple "normals" (although the one we are mainly talking about is psychological). Say we are talking about biological normality. If homosexuality is genetic, homosexuality is a biological abnormality. What about sociological abnormality? The entire world is oriented against same-sex relationships (although it is slowly changing to be accepted). Homosexuality is definitively a sociological abnormality. What about psychological? See, nomenclature is the real problem. A lot of people think abnormal means something negative, and others use it as a term to describe something out of the ordinary. Anything can (and WILL) be called abnormal until it is fully accepted, simply because it fits the definition. Anytime I use it from now on, I am using it to describe something that deviates from the norm. If you'd like, I can use the word deviant. Regardless, if you think that the world should just change and accept homosexuals out of nowhere, then I'm sorry, but you're being naive. Demonizing the average person for being uncomfortable of something deviant is not how you get them to be comfortable. The only course of action is integration and a little bit of patience.
The first statement is ridiculous, and the second statement irrelevant. People are hormonally drawn to hetero-sex because they instinctually want to procreate. We are instinctually DRIVEN to be heterosexual, and any deviation from that is purely out of emotion or sexual desire. Source: Eric Pianka - University of Texas
I don't see why anyone would, because Beyonce is hott as fuuuck, but stop using that word if you don't know what it means. Racism ONLY implies that you think a group is INFERIOR to yours. Sexual attraction has nothing to do with racism. That's like calling gay men sexist. | |
HOMOPHOBIA: The fear that another man will treat you the way you treat women. /thread | |
I am very homophobic. The very idea of things not changing causes me great panic. I think I need help. ;__; | |
You can't /thread yourself, you need someone else to do it, because often it's not a valid /thread. I know anti-gay guys who treat women wonderfully. Also, your statement doesn't account for homophobic women. | |
We are pretty much going in circles for like 8 pages now and it's starting to get tedious. People are too caught up in the whole evolution and "the goal of life" (philosophers have been discussing this for millennia, but every person against homosexuality has it all figured out) as if they are some omnipotent and conscious deities that DEMAND *something* from everyone and will punish us when we don't conform. That is silly and childish. The matter of fact is that as natural creatures on this earth, everything we CAN DO is natural by way of associative logic and by your definitions "nature" has ALLOWED humans and animals to be homosexual, it doesn't even matter why. It isn't hard to debunk the "unnatural" routine, but it requires more thought than "buuuuut it doesn't make babiiieeezzz waaaah". Neither does oral sex, but you don't whine about that. | |
What about the fact no accredited organization believes homosexuality is abnormal? What about the fact something can be not the norm, and yet still be a normal part of society, biology, psychologically normal, physically normal. Homosexuality, is, in fact, normal. It's just not the norm.
I don't consider the word normal a good or bad word. The word abnormal itself isn't a good or bad word, either. But you would have to be pretty dense not to understand that it is a loaded word. And you strike me as an intelligent guy. I think you know abnormal is a loaded word and you're using it intentionally. Acceptance doesn't have anything to do with something being abnormal. Murder isn't accepted as OK and it is a normal part of every society. Now, acceptance OF homosexuality is abnormal, yes. If you would have said that, you would have been correct. Homosexuality in society itself is NOT abnormal but societies throughout history have been anti-gay. So within, what, 10 years, that's going to change, and it's going to be homophobia that is categorically abnormal. Social norms change throughout time. But we're discussing homosexuality in itself.
Out of nowhere? No. It takes time. But it's time worth taking.
Both statements are facts, and there is nothing irrelevant about what I said. In fact the second statement, that people can procreate without engaging in sexual activity, is very relevant, due to the first point, which is that people do NOT have sex to procreate. http://webcenters.netscape.compuserve.com/men/package.jsp?name=fte/10reasons/10reasons Now, if you would have said people are straight because of the need to procreate, you would have been correct. But the statement you made wasn't that, and is an attempt to justify your claim homosexuality is deviant, which it is not. | |
Evolution is a sum-of-all-parts deal. That's what those who use the procreation argument fail to realize. | |
Just because we treat something as inevitable, doesn't make it so. I do not think we will see widespread acceptance of same-sex relationships in our lifetimes, or indeed any other. Demographics is destiny. The populations that are most supportive of the sexual liberation of the individual are greying, aging and dying. They will eventually dwindle. The healthiest Western societies act like economic vampires. Greedily sucking down transfusions of foreign labour from the developing world and keeping themselves vibrant and strong by taking the vitality of developing nations that can ill afford the continued predation. Most of these immigrants are socially conservative, which means if things continue in the current vein outright victory will continue to remain elusive and social progressives will remain locked in an endless battle of attrition. Just look at the various conflicts raging within the Islamic sphere. Nearly every civil conflict within it can be described in terms of more progressively minded urban populations versus more conservatively minded rural populations. | |
That's the only issue you have with the analogy, that tomatoes aren't people? I think we know that. The parallel is the interal reaction one has to seeing ANOTHER PERSON do something with the tomato. It's the same with observing two men kiss. Just because the object being interacted with is a person doesn't change the situation in the slightest. The observer's reaction is based upon their tastes and preferences. If the idea of kissing a man disgusts a person it is entirely rational that observing two men kiss would ALSO disgust that person. So long as that observer does not attempt to impair anyone else's ability to kiss men there is no problem. It isn't about homophobia, it is about being disgusted with the idea of engaging in physical relations with men. Telling someone that disgust of that nature is offensive, opressive or discriminatory is downright absurd. The reasons of the disgust aren't steeped in fear or hate towards homosexual males, it is simply an individual finding the idea of physical relations with a man disgusting. | |
Not really relevant to what I'm saying, but yeah... I'm not sure what you're getting at to be honest.
I disagree. I believe that homosexuality fits the bill of deviance very well. I don't know what you mean by "Accredited Organization", but there are tons of completely legitimate, unbiased articles about the deviance of homosexuality. Sodomy is basically the definitive sexual deviance. I don't think it gets much more clear cut than that lol. It doesn't matter what any of these words mean tbh. I just think you're going to far if you tell people they are bigoted for getting a little weirded out by seeing two men kiss. They're bigoted it they don't think you should have the same rights, or if they think you are a lesser citizen. Why should you care what I subconsciously feel? I'll get used to it if you stop giving a fuck. It's like when someone gets a new haircut. At first you usually don't like it, because you naturally hate change. Then it grows on you... if they wear it right. | |
As a bisexual male, I'll throw in my 5 cents... I actually have a phobia. Hemophobia. Small difference in letters, huge difference in meaning. So... a phobia is when you can't help it and it provokes a crippling fear you can't suppress, my own being a reasonable example. I think people who are disgusted with the thought of gay men or the visual COULD help it, but choose not to. I'm not saying it makes them horrible people, I'm just not impressed and think there's normal prejudice underneath. | |
well there are many post regarding that the feeling of disgust comes from putting yourself into the position of one of the guys kissing and as you dont like to kiss a guy, you feel a sensation of disgust. | |
Good for you. The professionals disagree with you.
And yet, professionals that actually study matters of sexuality do not agree.
Feel free to post those articles. Accredited organizations such as the American Psychological Association, American Mental Association, American Psychiatric Association, American Academy of Pediatrics. And we can go down the list. We'll be waiting for your articles that are from accredited organizations, peer reviewed, and unbiased.
Sodomy isn't a solitary sex act done by homosexuals. And it's also not deviant whatsoever, and in fact, extremely common within the animal kingdom aka nature, making it's a natural occurrence.
Never did say that.
Because it's not subconscious. Because you're speaking on behalf of the biases you hold and the fact you find homosexuality deviant and unnatural and conceptually wrong. You want me to stop giving a fuck; I don't care what you think because I know you're wrong. It's not me with the issue here. Yes, it takes time to get used to what is uncommon to you. I understand, respect that wholeheartedly. I do not need to celebrate your attempt to rid yourself of irrational bias. Spare me the pity party. You know what's right, and you know what's wrong, so do your part to stop doing wrong and start doing right. | |
Who cares? Your argument is that the reason many people respond with revulsion to gay PDA is that it's "unnatural" because it doesn't result in reproduction. I don't know about you, but most of my day is spent doing things that don't result in reproduction, and people seldom recoil from me in horror, so that argument is totally nonsensical. Additionally, a wide variety of sexual behaviors the average person doesn't find at all offensive don't directly result in reproduction, either, so there's another nail in that coffin. Originally you were including some nonsense about it also being contrary to natural selection, but apparently now you're backpedaling on that, without actually admitting you were wrong. Your pseudo-science and pseudo-psychology are rather poorly thought out. | |
I am so sorry for what you have to endure regarding your phobia. I hope there is something that you can do for it. Yes, real phobias (aka hemophobia, arachnophobia, acrophobia) are debilitating in many ways, are true conditions, and are legitimate issues that are not brought upon societal conditioning. Homophobia is a phobia in the sense that people feel threatened by homosexuality, and feel insecure around gay people. And same-sex kissing and interaction. And it is due to prejudice. It's not chosen prejudice. A person shouldn't be blamed solely for having said prejudice. But if they refuse to work on it, and if they are defiant in defending it, that's when there is a problem. And that's when a person gets the homophobe label slapped across their forehead. | |
I don't know many legitimately straight men who think of two men kissing to the extent they make a conscious decision on how to feel about it, why they feel that way about it, and why they cannot change and will not try to change. I know with my straight friends, I cankiss them and they don't recoil or act like they're about to die. I know that several straight guys in this very thread have said they find two guys kissing not a big deal, or at the most slightly uncomfortable and something that they get over. So that means these guys don't have an issue with two guys kissing. Yet we see our select few going out of their way to defend this bias, even when more or less proven wrong in all of their theories. It's amusing. We're in day 3 of the trainwreck. Let's see how bad the damage is when the crash finishes. | |
For fuck's sake. YOU do. YOU asked. Someone asked me a question of a negative side effect of homosexuality. That was the only one I could possibly thing of. I DO NOT THINK BEING HOMOSEXUAL IS A BAD THING. But at the same time EVERYTHING has a downside. It doesn't have to be terribly significant, it doesn't have to be crippling. But everything has one. I was asked to present one for homosexuality, ignoring morality. And look what happens, I'm bashed over the head with moral judgments for daring to suggest such a thing. It does flow against natural selection because its very nature removes the biological seed of the INDIVIDUAL from the pool. It does it in a most peculiar way. Not through weakness or inability to adapt or reproduce but by the individual's subconscious. Every other species possesses (in a significant majority of its members) the drive to reproduce yet homosexuality places a rather strange barrier towards that end - preference towards a sexual partner from which you can not reproduce. | |
Naturally you shallowly understand that the two people are finding each other attractive. I'm talking about subconscious processes in your head that places you in the position of what you are perceiving, and reacting to that with revulsion because it's something you can't cope with. | |
Thanks. The only thing that actually worries me is if I'm in an accident again and I start bleeding out and can't help myself because I can't stay conscious. Otherwise I manage just fine :)
We're all prejudiced some way. I embrace mine and work on them as I discover them. | |
You're blowing things I say WAAY out of proportion. I don't think homosexuality is wrong. When did I say that? Don't put words in my mouth. You're demonizing me and playing victim again and I refuse to argue with you if you're going to do that. | |
Nothing shallow about it. People like different things. They are just as entitled to like what they want to like as I am entitled to dislike what I dislike. As long as neither of us attempt to impede or dissuade each other in our personal tastes I can't see how or why we could come to issue with each other. The relationship between me being disgusted with the idea of interacting with another male in a sexual fashion and observing two men engage in clear sexual advances towards each other run parallel. Just as the tomato example, or running water encouraging urination... as long as I don't uncontrollably piss my pants when encountering water in motion who the hell cares? | |
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Is it homophobic to feel a bit uneasy when two dudes kiss but support things like gay marriage and enjoy seeing two girls kiss?