Puddy_Tat
naturally fluffy
I'm not convinced that anyone is advocating (much less teaching) detailed gay 'sex education' to primary school children...
LGBT in schools vs religious parents
- Thread starter Anton
- Start date
I'm not convinced that anyone is advocating (much less teaching) detailed gay 'sex education' to primary school children...
Saul Goodman
It's all good, man
Alan Turing was chemically castrated in 1952 for being gay. The man whose work saved millions of lives and was massively instrumental in ending WW2. People should be careful about getting on their high horse about how great England is, because that was only pissing time ago, and people should accept that those from other backgrounds might not be so fucking amazing as the English.
This world is full of bigotry against Jews, Muslims, Christians, LGBT, whatever skin colour some idiot decides they dislike, and a lot of other daft reasons, but they're all really fucking silly.
Why not take a really wild step and accept all bigotry is a fucking stupid idea, regardless of the target group?
Would it not be a good idea to just allow all the believe as they wish and, as long as those beliefs don't actually cause any harm to others, accept them as that group's way of life?
I'm a big believer in the fact most people are accepting of most other groups, but the more extreme in all groups are a problem to others. All groups have bigoted idiots, but the majority of people within social groups are no problem to anyone unless something attacks the values they hold.
Surely 'live and let live' is a far better way than one minority group attacking another because they see what they believe is an attack on them.
Why not take a really wild step and accept all bigotry is a fucking stupid idea, regardless of the target group?
Would it not be a good idea to just allow all the believe as they wish and, as long as those beliefs don't actually cause any harm to others, accept them as that group's way of life?
I'm a big believer in the fact most people are accepting of most other groups, but the more extreme in all groups are a problem to others. All groups have bigoted idiots, but the majority of people within social groups are no problem to anyone unless something attacks the values they hold.
Surely 'live and let live' is a far better way than one minority group attacking another because they see what they believe is an attack on them.
Poot
My wife thinks I work too hard
Of course, if we are going down that route, there is an argument that you choose your religion but not your sexuality.
And by the way, post-pubescent is too late.
Also, 10% of characters, not 10% of books. Any book with 10 characters, at least one to be gay. Blimey, these gays are all over the place, aren't they?! Or are we only going to acknowledge them 10% of the time?
Human relationships are about more than sex. Normalising a same-sex fairytale relationship would actually be a good start.
Punishing someone for being gay is a fucking stupid idea, that being even worse when you consider what he did for his county.
There goes the real crime in that case.
As long as the percentages reflect the real world, and the level of sexual content was equal at no more than a fairytale kiss, I'd agree with the above.
I'm into subtle, not pushing any given point of view.
That would mean rewriting old stories, something I'm unsure about, but it'd work well for new stories.
Yes, gays are everywhere, so popping the same percentage into books where storylines mention relationships is a good idea.
HoratioCuthbert
Deep seated inconsequence
Fuck no, not gay enough for my liking. It's literature!
Yeaaaah the homophobes in said countries like to make out it's a western construct too eh
Fozzie Bear
Well-Known Member
Presumably Anton thinks anarchists should oppose health and safety legislation because it’s a form of state oppression against bosses.
So read gay literature - I like Shakespeare but I don't want to force it on everyone.
Live and let live.
19sixtysix
Life as viewed from a Gay Gorbals Garret
If one gay child has a happier life because they realise they are gay and welcome in wider society because sex education at an appropriate level is compulsory then it is a good thing. Being gay is not a choice unlike religion.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
Shakespeare was a he not an it
I was referring to his works
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
If you had been referring to his works you'd have said them not it
Athos
Well-Known Member
I'm not sure 'homosexuality' has always existed. There are serious historiographic difficulties in retrospectively applying a modern European concept (i.e. homosexuality as an identity) to all times and places. Men who had sex with men in pre-Islamic Iran, for instance, would not have considered themselves homosexuals, or been considered that way by others.
Poot
My wife thinks I work too hard
Sorry but I stand by my point. They were gay. Sexuality is in some cases a spectrum but some people are gay and it has always been the case. And I think it's naive (and insulting) to pretend otherwise.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
You don't think it's insulting to label people in the past with today's tags?
Poot
My wife thinks I work too hard
No. Not if it helps to normalise homosexuality. And also not if it's true, which I believe it is.
I'm not sure how true it is for many people that there's choice in what their religion is tbf.
grit
an ugly force for good
Turings contributions to computing transformed the world, it’s difficult to overstate the influence his work has had.
Poot
My wife thinks I work too hard
Yeah, I do agree. Choose is not the correct word at all and I know that really. But I think it's more elastic than who you fall in love with.
Athos
Well-Known Member
They weren't gay. They did not consider themselves gay; nobody else considered them gay; there was no concept of gayness.
Which isn't, of course, to say that there haven't always been people who had sex with people of the same sex (exclusively or as part of a mix), or that we should resist the use of history to normalise such acts.
But you're conflating the act of same-sex sex (which seems to have existed in all times and places) with the culturally specific identity of homosexuality.
Imagine a society China 500 years in the future, in which men only speak to men. If they looked back and saw I spoke to women, it'd be accurate to describe me by reference to that action e.g. 'a man who spoke to women'. But, it'd be meaningless (or, worse, misleading) to ascribe to me China's newly-coined identity of 'heterophone'. Because I don't identify that way, nobody else identifies me that way, and no such identity exists in this time and place.
It follows that rebels against that new orthodoxy could cite me as evidence that men who speak to women have existed in different times and places, to normalise that conduct. But not that there have always been people with the identity 'heterophone'.
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chilango
Hypothetical Wanker
More that he would think it would be a good argument to prove the bankruptcy of anarchism.
His quixotic impossible dream, innit?
Did he get dumped by a crusty at a Levellers gig in 1992 or something?
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Wookey
Muppet is not a slur
I came to the conclusion some years ago that I am not actually gay, per se. It's just the currently most acceptable term for the fact I am exclusively romantically attracted to the same sex.
I use the word "gay" to describe myself, because at this moment in history it's useful identifier and framework for emancipatory organisation - we can't fight oppression if we remain invisible to each other and to the wider world, and that's what Pride is about; it's claiming an identity that allows us to exist and to protect that existence from harm.
But if I was on a desert island on my own, I wouldn't be gay. I would just be me. My gayness exists because it isn't heterosexuality, it exists as a contrast to the perceived norm. But were I born 1000 years ago, or 1000 years hence, I would not have had nor would I be needing that label.
One distant day, when we all finally realise that exclusive heterosexuality isn't "normal", it's just common, and that most humans exist somewhere else along the sexuality spectrum is the day that gayness will cease to exist, and we will all just be humans. The label is a tool we need now, but already I can see that younger gay people in the UK who have not been criminalised and abused for their sexuality are a lot more "Meh" about their sexual identity, which is far healthier and more productive than the continuous battle for existence and freedom that previous "gay" generations have had to endure.
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Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
Dumped on his head maybe
Wookey
Muppet is not a slur
So if a Creationist parent objected to the teaching of science, biology, astrophysics, etc, and they told the school they didn't want their kids going into science lessons, the state would have something to say about that. If they tried to home school, the state would still have something to say about that, because every child has the right to an accurate education separate from their parents beliefs.
Aren't we just negotiating that tricky period in history, between the time when the majority of people believed in sky pixies, and the time when the majority realises it's bogus bullshit?
Athos
Well-Known Member
Yes, the idea of gayness is very much a product of here and now, rather than something ubiquitous and immutable in space and time. It is a double-edged sword; it can be a useful tool for some emanciaptory politics, but it can also be regressive insofar as it gives undue/unnecessary significance to the sex of sexual partners, and 'others' same-sex attraction. Either way, it doesn't help our understanding of history to retrospectively apply concepts to times and places without any appreciation of the contemporaneous social context.
Wookey
Muppet is not a slur
I would totally agree with you Athos - 20 years ago I was the Editor of the national gay newspaper - today, outwith that network and political structure, I often forget I am gay. It's only a main plank of my identity when compared to other people's!
But that is here, in early 21st Century UK, where it could be argued we're on the threshold of the post-gay era. I'm aware of just how privileged a position that is... The majority of non-heterosexual people in the world are not where we are, and aren't in a position to contemplate the existence of an identity that doesn't require a label...
Athos
Well-Known Member
I would totally agree with you Athos - 20 years ago I was the Editor of the national gay newspaper - today, outwith that network and political structure, I often forget I am gay. It's only a main plank of my identity when compared to other people's!
But that is here, in early 21st Century UK, where it could be argued we're on the threshold of the post-gay era. I'm aware of just how privileged a position that is... The majority of non-heterosexual people in the world are not where we are, and aren't in a position to contemplate the existence of an identity that doesn't require a label...
I agree. My point isn't that it can't be a useful (even necessary) label, now; it was about the difficulty of meaningfully applying that label (and the concept it represents) to other times and places (where there was no such concept) - refuting Poot's idea that there have always been people that can/should be identified as 'gay' (whist accepting there has always been same-sex sex, love and attraction).
Wookey
Muppet is not a slur
We don't have one flag, we have fucking loads!!
And that's just this week's list!
We aren't connected by any perceived similarity in our sexualities, but by our common enemies.
I have more in common with Mr and Mrs Smith down the road, than I do a gender-fluid lesbian identified person. But I ally with gender-fluid lesbian identified people because the oppressors that come for them, will eventually be coming for me. The same reason I stand up for racial equality, disability equality, gender equality - our enemies are the same, and we are stronger together - doesn't mean for one minute that we all agree!
We don't have a unified philosophy - and Tatchell's fight for Queer solidarity was spiked on the altar of late industrial capitalism, and the nascent Queer revolution he proposed has been subsumed into non-conforming sexualities just becoming another marketing tool. We had a chance, it might return, but dissolving the concept of sexual demarcations was at the heart of his approach, sex as an act rather than a fixed identity - which means we would only ever need one label. Human.
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