Angerwing said:
That's always been one of the things I don't get about homophobia: Just because they like men, doesn't mean they like YOU. Not every woman in the world is clamouring to have sex with every man, just like every gay man doesn't want to jump the bones of every other man. I liked this article a lot. Yet homophobia seems to be the most common intolerance around. A whole bunch of my WoW Guild Mates shat brix when I told them the Spartans were all homosexual, and got annoyed when I told them why. One of them even got quite hostile with me, and still won't use my name without adding some expletive.
It's in part because there's a lot of stigma and culture baggage loaded into homosexuality. And also, a lot of men in society are themselves more sexually insecure and busted up than they understand or would ever admit, since traditionally, society has conditioned men to be "tough" and closed, and made them just not talk about a whole range of things.
In short, gay people make a whole lot of straight men feel confused just by existing, and they hate that.
For the folks downthread who think gay people are just oversensitive and whiny:
It is quickly becoming a new straw man, this image of the flowery, delicate, politically correct gay advocate who squeals at the slightest imagined offense. And yes, there are some ultra liberal, terribly shrill GBLT crusaders out there who help prop up this straw man.
However, as a gay male, here's a different perspective. The vast majority of gay men I've ever known who do not come from the background of what are really only a couple major pools of concentrated gay culture in the usual suspect cities, hardly fit the shrill and delicate stereotype. In reality, off the Internet and off of network television, the insidious thing about the Gay Male is you cannot tell what he looks like! Oh my.
But here is a slice of life for the actual, authentic, average gay male who is not made of straw.
I live with my partner in a pleasant college town. It's not overly whitebread. It's quite used to a rainbow coalition of ethic types due to the college campus; students of every stripe fill the town half of the year.
However, homophobia is quite rampant in America, and deeply ingrained. It is also quite hostile and threatening when you're the target. Things /always/ look different when you're the target; they can look very different indeed.
See, the road that we live on happens to be a popular route for students at the uni to take on the way to a town park where, to be frank, they meet to get laid, sell dope and meth. The favorite American pastimes. My partner and I have learned to be very wary on the road where we live, because if we happen to be in front of our house, or walking on the road, when carloads of students pass by - not the same few troublemakers, but a random and ever changing variety of people - they typically swerve at us, wave bottles out the windows, honk constantly, and roll down their windows to scream "FUCKING FAGGOTS" before speeding off again.
It's not that we're walking down the street in leather chaps, folks. We most insidiously look like everyone else. However, the key is, there are only two of us; not a group of four or five college buds. Two men alone? This is America. They're probably gay, so the wisdom goes. Ironically, in this case, the average students guess correctly.
Now, let's be realistic here. Hormonally overloaded 18 year old male Americans, drunk, constantly going back and forth with carloads of meth. Yes, this is not at all a recipe for disaster if they see a couple of faggots on the street one evening. We're not even in the deep south or anywhere stereotypical like that. We're in one of the "good places".
We don't have to do anything to feel threatened or get people to scream at us and serve their cars within inches of us every day. We look "normal". But Americans are well trained to smell the gay at this point. All you have to do is stand outside. That's about it.
This is a bit more of the reality of the situation. It's not about people being "too sensitive" when someone tells a stupid joke in his office cubicle. There are actually reasons why gay people are /slightly concerned/ about homophobia than mere foppish sensibilities. You might want to forgive them if, having to live with this all the time in real life, they're just kind of tired to hear more of it when they log on to Xbox Live. It's just a little matter of saturation. Silly I know!
Well, I'll shut up now.
