At some point there is going to be a backlash, and we are going to go back to jailing sodomites if not throwing them off tall buildings. I should find that utterly disgusting, but perhaps not quite as disgusting as that article.
I suspect that almost all men and a lot of women find homosexuals disgusting. Maybe even homosexuals feel the same. It is something that people can be conditioned into denying, human beings are good at deceiving themselves. We should probably conceal it in their company out of kindness, and we *should* treat them kindly. But pretending that it isn’t a horrible mental disease may be going too far for our own mental health.Uhuh.
And poor old dover beach:
The Yes campaign are terrified that the soft center of Australian politics that has been swayed largely by a decade of inane rhetoric, I.e.. Love is love, marriage equality, is going to realise that a Yes vote would put anal sex on the same normative plane as sexual intercourse. Further, that erasing the category of sex from marriage will further the claim that sex is just gender. And this and more would find its way not only in sex education programs but throughout the curriculum. That is why a fire brigade of Yes advocates was sent out the day after the No ad. Panic stations.Oddly, I didn't imagine that lesbian couples (a bigger percentage of which, one suspects, may be more likely to be keen on marrying than male couples) were all that interested in the sexual activity that dover seems to think same sex marriage is all about. And don't a reasonable number of gay men avoid it as a matter of preference too? In any event, this article from last year should definitely kept out of the reach of Catallaxy threadsters - they'll be talking about it for hours on end.
Update: by coincidence, I see that Philosophy Now has a free article on line entitled "The Further History of Sexuality: from Michael Foucault to Miley Cyrus" (!). Actually, it's not bad, and parts would actually be embraced by those at Catallaxy who insist that the normalisation of gay sexual relationships is all part of a Marxist socialist plot.* It ends on this note:
As we have seen, Foucault’s analysis of the shifting significance of homosexuality in Western culture over the last two centuries identifies two stages, corresponding to the production by power of its own opposition:* They don't seem to notice that decades of quasi Marxist attitudes towards women doing their bit in the factories and fields to build the socialist paradise in Russian and China has actually led to the least gay friendly nations on Earth. Some Marxist feminists may well think this way - it is not a realistic explanation of why many Western nations have accepted gay relationships.
(i) Homosexuals identified as a ‘deviant’ group, the target of medical and legal intervention.
(ii) Homosexuals accepting this identity, as gay people, and campaigning for equality and integration into general society.
This second stage can be said to have culminated in the recent acceptance, in many countries, of gay marriage. But the ending of this conflict inevitably generates a completely new situation, in which:
(iii) The division homosexual/normal having been overcome, the category of ‘homosexual’ itself loses its rigid borders and begins to dissolve into contemporary ‘pansexuality’.
who the hell made the comment about throwing people off buildings?? why the hell such people would go read a libertarian blog confuses me
ReplyDeleteto be fair, same sex activity (or at least *male* same sex activity) is not something I like to imagine either - why is why I don't. problem solved
ReplyDeleteCatallaxy a libertarian blog????
ReplyDeletecertainly more libertarian than you, Mr 'IVF equals adultery'
ReplyDeleteThe first comment was made in relation to some same sex health website - I think funded with some grant or other from the government - that spoke about young guys who are into "daddy" partners. I didn't bother checking the website - chances are the hysteria is exaggerated. But the reaction being that gays are all mentally ill and can expect to start being thrown off buildings again if they keep this up - not that he would approve, but really, what can they expect? Just nuts.
ReplyDeleteReading Catallaxy certainly backs up that recent theory that social conservatives have an unusually high "disgust" reaction in their brains to, well, lots of things (not just sexual matters - but it's obvious - there is a thinking about anal sex going on there at the moment!
how can it be l for a startibertarian,
ReplyDeleteIt wants to restrict immigration.
I have never denied being a social conservative Soony. Noe have I ever denied there is a conflict from being a social conservative and an economic liberal.
Male same sex activity is repulsive to many if not most heterosexuals. It is a strong response, I don't think that is cultural, there is something else going on there. I have a lesser response to very camp behavior. It annoys me.
ReplyDeleteRates of mental illness are far higher and I don't think that can be entirely explained by discrimination and social issues. I don't understand this and it seems to me that brain and behavior evolutionary dynamics are optimised within parameters and if the individual demonstrates traits outside those parameters while they are not mentally ill they can also be not quite right. I don't accept evolutionary psychology arguments for why homosexuality exists. The genetic influence is rather weak, where it probably does have some association with so many mental health conditions is that the state can arise from the in utero environment with alleles increase the risk of states outside preferable developmental parameters but not being necessary for that to arise as epigenetics may even be sufficient. The incidence rate is low enough for, basically, "shit happens". Sorry I can't be more specific but my reading on the cerebral development in relation to autism made me appreciate how sensitive those developmental processes can be at specific stages of maturation.
John, don't you think that the very rapid and near universal change in approval for same sex relationships amongst people under, say, 30 years old today indicates something about a decreasing repulsion to male same sex activity? Also, the laissez faire approach to it in ancient Rome and Greece?
ReplyDeleteI suspect these things do indicate a significant cultural influence - either that or young people are just better than older folk at not thinking about what their gay acquaintances might be doing with their genitalia with each other...
Other examples one could cite re cultural influence to same sex activities - the Melanesian tribes with the well documented initiation period in which the boys live with the men and ...do I have to be explicit? It's an absolutely gross and hair raising idea to us, but routine to them, apparently. (Assuming they're not all having us on as to what goes on in the men's hut. And it's not as if "well they do it" is any reliable guide as to what should be acceptable in our society, given that they also might have only recently given up on eating their enemies, for example.)
ReplyDeleteI also think it might not be a stretch to mention the extreme attitudes in some societies to the uncleanliness in menstruation - I would guess that there is a real element of disgust that goes with that, which has to be learnt.
So yeah, I think you have to allow for significant cultural influence, but there may be an element of "something else going on there" too.
John, don't you think that the very rapid and near universal change in approval for same sex relationships amongst people under, say, 30 years old today indicates something about a decreasing repulsion to male same sex activity? Also, the laissez faire approach to it in ancient Rome and Greece?
ReplyDeleteNo because repulsion is not sufficient reason to prevent people doing something. Over the last 30 years people have become more tolerant of difference. Another issue is that the typical linkage between relationships and children has changed a great deal with raising children no longer being the imperative it once was. So marriage is no longer strictly perceived as being about the raising of children it is now more about commitment to each other. I think the younger generation are still repulsed by the behavior but have been raised in an environment more encouraging towards tolerance than previous generations.