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Source: (consider it) Thread: I call all homophobes to Hell - especially Russ
Golden Key
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# 1468

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Russ--

As I and other posters have mentioned, the way you feel about LGBT is the way many people have felt about the Irish in America. Not normal, not quite human, unclean, don't let them into your store because they'll steal, don't marry one, don't hire one, don't let them live near you, don't let them be seen, don't let them breed. If you have the option, drive 'em away.

Were the anti-Irish folks right to treat them that way? People are *born* Irish. It's not a choice, unless someone marries in.

If the anti-Irish folks were wrong, then what about your posted thoughts about homosexuals and how they should behave??
[Confused]

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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")

Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001  |  IP: Logged
JonahMan
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About a page ago I was actually feeling a bit sorry for Russ. All his reasons for his homophobia - biological, moral, practical - were comprehensively demolished. Even his feeble justifications involving politeness were shown to be shallow and ill thought out. He really had nowhere to go.

Then he posts another rant as if the previous 29 pages hadn't been written (or read, anyway). And any residual sympathy I had for him - not for his position, but for how his arguments had been so soundly refuted - vanishes.

Can he not read and learn that the only justification for his views boil down either to "I think it's icky" or "I think God says it's wrong"? Just admitting that, and not pretending that there are any other genuine points, would at least be honest. And perhaps would prevent another 29 pages of regurgitation.

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Thank God for the aged
And old age itself, and illness and the grave
For when you're old, or ill and particularly in the coffin
It's no trouble to behave

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orfeo

Ship's Musical Counterpoint
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Yeah, I've got no more time for this idiot either.

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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.

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Sioni Sais
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I don't know if his avatar is supposed to be a real person, but it does look like a supercilious git.

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(Paul Sinha, BBC)

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Alan Cresswell

Mad Scientist 先生
# 31

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quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
disgust at the idea of homosexual acts is ... part of a natural hard-wired revulsion against sexual desire for the inappropriate (animals, infants etc).

Disgust at the inane ramblings of homophobic bigots is part of a God-given revulsion against the inhuman treatment of others (Nazi concentration camps exterminating millions, etc).

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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.

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Pigwidgeon

Ship's Owl
# 10192

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quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
I don't know if his avatar is supposed to be a real person, but it does look like a supercilious git.

Paul Gauguin?

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Carex
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quote:
Originally posted by Russ:


- that disgust at the idea of homosexual acts is not pathological (still less something malevolent - people are not responsible for what they feel) but is part of a natural hard-wired revulsion against sexual desire for the inappropriate (animals, infants etc). And that therefore whilst everyone should, out of consideration for others, exercise a certain amount of discretion in how much they publicize their sexual intimacy, homosexuals should be more discrete than heterosexuals are...

Why do you keep thinking about the sexual activity of homosexuals? It always seems to come back to this - that you find it yucky to think about it, but appear to insist on thinking about it at every opportunity.

If anything is defective, this is it: your continual thinking about what others do in bed. That is un-natural, and is what needs to be cured / prevented.

THIS IS NOT NORMAL. IT IS A PERVERSION.

Do you do the same for heterosexual couples? Is that the first thing that comes to your mind when you meet someone - what they get up to, with whom, and how often?


When I meet people - gay, straight, unknown, or other - that's certainly NOT something I concern myself with. In fact, I can't remember ever trying to imagine or speculate about the private activity of any particular couple.

I find the idea of someone spending much of their time fantasizing about what others might be doing in bed (or in the hot tub, on the kitchen table, or hanging from the chandelier) to be more disgusting than anything the couples might be doing.

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Leorning Cniht
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quote:
Originally posted by Russ:

- that disgust at the idea of homosexual acts is not pathological (still less something malevolent - people are not responsible for what they feel)

There's nothing wrong with finding the idea of having sex with someone of the same sex disgusting. I find Brussels sprouts disgusting. That's OK.

quote:
homosexuals should be more discrete than heterosexuals are.
This doesn't follow from "it's OK to find gay sex disgusting." It's OK to find straight sex disgusting, too.

To get to the conclusion that "homosexuals should be more discrete than heterosexuals are", you need your whole "homosexuality is a disgusting perversion that should be grudgingly permitted behind closed doors" worldview.


quote:

I hope that those conclusions are moderate, reasonable and logical, given the premise.

No, I don't think they follow from your premise "homosexuality is a defective sexual desire" at all. Deaf people have defective hearing. It doesn't follow that they should keep their Deafness behind closed doors because it makes you uncomfortable.

People with Down Syndrome and similar disorders are "defective" in your words, but it doesn't follow that they should be obliged to hide themselves away because you don't like seeing them.

There are, of course, countries where the disabled aren't tolerated. Those places usually don't like gay folks much either.

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Lyda*Rose

Ship's broken porthole
# 4544

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quote:
Originally posted by Pigwidgeon:
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
I don't know if his avatar is supposed to be a real person, but it does look like a supercilious git.

Paul Gauguin?
Well, he was pretty much of a git. And ostentatiously heterosexual. With Tahitian teenage girls. [Disappointed]

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"Dear God, whose name I do not know - thank you for my life. I forgot how BIG... thank you. Thank you for my life." ~from Joe Vs the Volcano

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anoesis
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quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:

quote:
Originally posted by Russ:

- that disgust at the idea of homosexual acts is not pathological (still less something malevolent - people are not responsible for what they feel) but is part of a natural hard-wired revulsion against sexual desire for the inappropriate (animals, infants etc).

Shipmates: I ask you read these words and consider whether you still think Russ anything other than a troll or an idiot.
Right now I'm considering whether I know a whole lot less than I thought I did about "homosexual acts". As far as I've been aware up to this point, most of the relevant acts can be engaged in by the "right" sort of pairings also, and with these good folk making up such a large proportion of the population (there's Russ's "it's a heterosexual world"), I had always thought it likely, to the extent that I have thought about it at all, that the heteros are responsible for the majority of the sodomising and semen-swallowing that's going on in the world - and yet somehow it doesn't spring to the forefront of one's mind when a new couple turns up at church, or at kindergarten, or at Saturday morning yoga. Odd, isn't it? No wait, perhaps it's normal.

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The history of humanity give one little hope that strength left to its own devices won't be abused. Indeed, it gives one little ground to think that strength would continue to exist if it were not abused. -- Dafyd --

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Doublethink.
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Is this the time to point out gay women exist ? Most of Russ's fear/disgust seems to be around gay men, but you know - solidarity brothers ...

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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell

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Boogie

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# 13538

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quote:
Originally posted by Pigwidgeon:
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
I don't know if his avatar is supposed to be a real person, but it does look like a supercilious git.

Paul Gauguin?
From Wiki -

"Gauguin later wrote a travelogue (first published 1901) titled Noa Noa .... In it he revealed that he had at this time taken a thirteen-year-old girl as native wife or vahine (the Tahitian word for "woman"), a marriage contracted in the course of a single afternoon. This was Teha'amana, called Tehura in the travelogue, who was pregnant by him by the end of summer 1892. Teha'amana was the subject of several of Gauguin's paintings, including Merahi metua no Tehamana and the celebrated Spirit of the Dead Watching, as well as a notable woodcarving Tehura now in the Musée d'Orsay."

[Frown]

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Firenze

Ordinary decent pagan
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And him with the syphilis.
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Jane R
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Doublethink.:
quote:
Is this the time to point out gay women exist ? Most of Russ's fear/disgust seems to be around gay men, but you know - solidarity brothers ...
This is typical. Start a debate anywhere at any time about gay sex, or gay marriage, or anything else to do with homosexuals, and watch the lesbians disappear (until they want to buy a wedding cake, when they become abruptly visible).
Posts: 3958 | From: Jorvik | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Ariston
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Ah, yes. Can you just picture it there, Russ. I want to you get a good mental picture.

Meanwhile, I'm quite happy to leave the obsession over what exactly others are doing on their own time to the others themselves. I'm happy to think that people I know are Quite Enjoying Themselves, and just as happy to never, ever think about that.

Unless you want advice on how to reinforce the chandeliers, it's probably best not to ask or wonder about them.

Oh, and no, seeing a couple, of whatever composition, doesn't imply, much less force, that I should think about their crystalline light fixtures. As far as I know, they could well find fulfillment playing cribbage in the dark. Romance does not necessarily imply sex, or even desire for it.

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“Therefore, let it be explained that nowhere are the proprieties quite so strictly enforced as in men’s colleges that invite young women guests, especially over-night visitors in the fraternity houses.” Emily Post, 1937.

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Crœsos
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# 238

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quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
- that disgust at the idea of homosexual acts is not pathological (still less something malevolent - people are not responsible for what they feel) but is part of a natural hard-wired revulsion against sexual desire for the inappropriate (animals, infants etc).

Shipmates: I ask you read these words and consider whether you still think Russ anything other than a troll or an idiot.
Maybe he's a columnist for a major newspaper? His assertion of "natural hard-wired revulsion" reminds me of something similar Richard Cohen wrote about interracial marriage in the Washington Post:

quote:
People with conventional views must repress a gag reflex when considering the mayor-elect of New York — a white man married to a black woman and with two biracial children.
Most of these assertions about hard wired revulsion tell us a lot more about those making the assertions than they do about anyone else. It's just a massive projection of personal prejudice onto the larger population.

Nor does this theory of "hard-wired revulsion" survive even the simplest scrutiny. If such revulsion is a natural reaction to homosexual sex, why are the biggest consumers of lesbian-themed pornography straight men? Where's their revulsion?

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Humani nil a me alienum puto

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Leorning Cniht
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# 17564

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quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
If such revulsion is a natural reaction to homosexual sex, why are the biggest consumers of lesbian-themed pornography straight men? Where's their revulsion?

I thought you knew - gay men are revolting, but lesbians are hot.

quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink.:
Is this the time to point out gay women exist ? Most of Russ's fear/disgust seems to be around gay men, but you know - solidarity brothers ...

I thought you knew - gay men are revolting, but lesbians are hot.

Seriously, that's actually the answer. Most straight porn-consuming men want to watch women having sex.

I don't think I've ever seen the opposite question answered - do straight women who like porn want to see two men at it? Perhaps we should poll the shippies...

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rolyn
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I posed that question several pages back. The answer appeared to be that women are not adverse to the idea of men at it.
Not sure if there,s a porn market that serves it . There is though something called slash fic.?

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LeRoc

Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216

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I feel revulsion at the thought of two men having sex. But that isn't a valid reason why their rights should be restricted.

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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)

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Alan Cresswell

Mad Scientist 先生
# 31

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It may be a good reason for you not to think about it though.

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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.

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LeRoc

Famous Dutch pirate
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Of course.

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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)

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ldjjd
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# 17390

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It's quite possible to feel revulsion at the thought of human sex in general. Even sex among animals may not seem to be something to watch or think about without feeling that, on a basic level, it is a less than pure and noble activity.

I don't think that it's at all uncommon for children to feel revulsion or even horror when they first understand the "birds and the bees", but soon thereafter hormones and social comnditioning usually soften these views.

Also, plenty of heterosexuals engage in the very same practices as do homosexuals, and is that equally revolting?

[written before above two posts]

[ 02. November 2015, 22:50: Message edited by: ldjjd ]

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St Deird
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quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
There is though something called slash fic.?

For those who don't know the term:

Slash fic is a variety of fanfic focusing on a male/male relationship. It's extremely popular, and for most fandoms, the dominant form of fanfic.

There are:
Gen - not focused on a relationship
Het - focused on a male/female relationship
Slash - focused on a male/male relationship
Femslash - focused on a female/female relationship

Yes, a lot of straight women find slash fic really hot.

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They're not hobbies; they're a robust post-apocalyptic skill-set.

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Crœsos
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quote:
Originally posted by ldjjd:
Also, plenty of heterosexuals engage in the very same practices as do homosexuals, and is that equally revolting?

Well yeah. There seems to be literally no sex act that a homosexual couple can perform that isn't also done by heterosexuals. If the natural revulsion theory were valid, wouldn't this be false?

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Humani nil a me alienum puto

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Carex
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quote:
Originally posted by ldjjd:

I don't think that it's at all uncommon for children to feel revulsion or even horror when they first understand the "birds and the bees", but soon thereafter hormones and social comnditioning usually soften these views.

Except when they think about their parents doing it, in which case the feeling of revulsion and horror may never go away...
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ldjjd
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# 17390

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Also, I think that many people feel disgust at the thought of sex between members of various groups of people who do not measure up to widely held minimal standards of physical attractiveness, e.g., the obese, the quite elderly, the disabled, the dirty and disheveled, the
markedly ugly.

[ 03. November 2015, 01:13: Message edited by: ldjjd ]

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Soror Magna
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There's only so much time in a day for imagining other people having sex .... why waste it on whatever one happens to find disgusting, unless one is Russ?

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Macrina
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Personally I find the idea of straight sex revolting and unnatural (to me) but I don't go around trying to restrict the rights of heterosexuals to marry and dehumanising them because I understand that my personal preferences are not the moral arbiter of the species.
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mousethief

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# 953

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It always comes back to the ick factor, doesn't it? "It's icky to me, therefore it's icky to all right-thinking people, therefore it's immoral."

This is what lies behind 90% of all homophobia, I'm convinced.

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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...

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ldjjd
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# 17390

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Maybe dwelling apon the disgusting sex lives of others is a diversion from dissatisfaction with one's own sex life: "I'm not sexually satisfied, but thank God, I'm not one of those vile people whose sex lives are so filthy."

I assume that this doesn't apply to Russ, a happy heterosexual, I'm sure.

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LeRoc

Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216

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My parents never had sex. And if someone asks, I will always deny it.

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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)

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Boogie

Boogie on down!
# 13538

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quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
My parents never had sex. And if someone asks, I will always deny it.

We did conceive Boogielet 1 without having sex. (AIH)

My SIL's sister had two lovely boys, no man in sight (AID)

Turkey Basters rool! [Biased]

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Garden. Room. Walk

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Boogie

Boogie on down!
# 13538

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quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
It always comes back to the ick factor, doesn't it? "It's icky to me, therefore it's icky to all right-thinking people, therefore it's immoral."

This is what lies behind 90% of all homophobia, I'm convinced.

Yes.

I still blame large swathes of the Church who sanction such.

And in the Old Testament it looks like there were a million icky things you had to avoid or be dubbed 'evil'. Plenty of ammunition for those who look for it.

I say ban the OT.

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Garden. Room. Walk

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Palimpsest
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# 16772

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Russ appears to have entered the condition he attributes to his mother; Senile inability to understand the current world. This can be scene in his inability to read and comprehend the many posts here which have pointed out the vast flaws in his arguments.
At some level he notices that the objections are there in his evasion; I'm going to tell gay children that they are defective but I'm not a bully; it's my natural revulsion".

Fortunately it appears that the country he lives on has moved on, leaving him as an old person who just doesn't comprehend modern life.

What a loser.

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Eliab
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# 9153

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quote:
Originally posted by Carex:
Except when they think about their parents doing it, in which case the feeling of revulsion and horror may never go away...

If only that were true. I was at a hospital last month, filling in a consent form for a blood test, and completed the box marked "Sex:" with what I thought would be an uncontroversial "M".

My daughter (age 8) exclaimed - accusingly and (very) loudly: "That's wrong! You didn't have sex with a man. You had sex with a woman!"

[ 03. November 2015, 09:39: Message edited by: Eliab ]

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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"

Richard Dawkins

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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748

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You could have put "Yes please". As I did once. But I was made to cross it out and fill the box in correctly.

Oh, what larks.

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Forward the New Republic

Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005  |  IP: Logged
Alan Cresswell

Mad Scientist 先生
# 31

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And, the doctors and nurses who see such a response immediately, and invariably correctly, say "bloke". I've never heard a woman recount such a response, especially as some form of lark.

Which maybe another example of feminism not being part of the establishment. Oh, sorry. Wrong thread.

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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.

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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748

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I could reasonably blame the massive drugs I was taking for my outbreak of blokeiness.

I've no similar excuse for poking Master Tor's arm repeatedly when asked by the paediatric nurse "does he bruise easily?"

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Forward the New Republic

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Firenze

Ordinary decent pagan
# 619

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quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
I could reasonably blame the massive drugs I was taking for my outbreak of blokeiness.

They can give you drugs for it?

Or, alternatively, if the blokeiness was a side effect of drugs for something else, how do they affect women?

[ 03. November 2015, 11:47: Message edited by: Firenze ]

Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001  |  IP: Logged
Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748

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It was like being very very drunk: I guess it depended on what kind of drunk you became. Fortunately, blokeiness is as bad as it gets with me.

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Forward the New Republic

Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005  |  IP: Logged
Alan Cresswell

Mad Scientist 先生
# 31

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Turning into Jeremy Clarkson sounds pretty bad to me.

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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.

Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153

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quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
And this is a heterosexual world. We are a heterosexual species - that is part of how we reproduce.

You are simply wrong. Yes, humans reproduce (hetero)sexually, but we are not an exclusively heterosexual species. It is so common as to be entirely unremarkable for an individual human being to experience some same-sex attraction at some point in their life, and there are enough people who mostly or entirely experience same sex attraction that they cannot be discounted as simple anomalies.

I think though, that the rapidity with which you go from the uncontroversial observation that most people identify as heterosexual, to the false-except-by-the-grossest-approximation conclusion that "we are a heterosexual species", and the false-on-any-view statement that "this is a heterosexual world" suggests something rather unpleasant about how you view minorities. You are giving the impression that your view is not that we (as a whole society) ought to aim at making life fair and happy for everyone as far as we can, but that people who are atypical have a duty to fit in with normal people, that unfairness to them doesn't matter so much, and that if they are unhappy, it's because they are defective, not because we have treated them badly.

I'd like to think this is a false impression, but the evidence for its falsity is somewhat lacking.

quote:
I know that you don't agree. You see having a small proportion of homosexuals in the mix as somehow part of human reproductive strategy. As part of what humans are meant to be. As part of Creation rather than as part of the Fall. You don't see homosexuality as any sort of impairment.
I appreciate that you are responding to a number of people, some of whom have argued that, but really, I don't know how I could have been more clear that this is NOT my view. It is one of several possible explanations for why some people are gay. There seems to me to be serious difficulties with it as an account, and therefore it's not a view that I believe.

I don't think that anyone currently knows how or why homosexuality originates. My guess would be that if you are trying to 'design' a highly-sexed, socialised, intelligent primate capable of long-term and ostensibly faithful sexual relationships over the decade or so needed for the successful rearing of more than replacement numbers of offspring, you can't just hard-wire behaviour. You have to have brains adapted to form a flexible and enduring standard of what sort of thing is perceived as sexually attractive, which must have sufficient capacity for variety as to hold the attention of a clever ape, and to maximise the chances of finding at least one attractive partner, and also have a degree of fixation so that a relationship once formed has a good chance of lasting long enough for child-rearing. Such brains performing to specification might well result in exclusively heterosexual behaviour 50-70% of the time, exclusively homosexual behaviour 2-10% of the time, and bisexual behaviour otherwise. Homosexuality would therefore be a side-effect of human evolution, and not itself either adaptive or defective. It wouldn't have been selected for, but would arise naturally as a result of having a primate embryology trying to grow sexualised ape brains.

If I'm right, homosexuality is the clitoris of sexual preferences. You don't need a clitoris to have a successful mammalian reproductive strategy. You get one as a side-effect of having an embryology that sets aside a structure marked "grow penis from this if one is required". But having a clitoris is not a defect - it's a blessing.

quote:
And from that follows your belief that same-sex unions should have the same status in human society as opposite-sex unions. You would no more deny one than deny the other. It's just the same thing applied to the minority strain of the species. Perfectly logical.
Actually, no the conclusion does not follow. Even if homosexuality is a biological adaptation, that says absolutely nothing about its proper status in society. Infidelity is a biological adaption. I've got the testicles of an ape whose ancestors put it about. A lot. That fact does not justify me cheating on my wife.

My reasons for wanting to accord same sex relationships equal legal standing are founded on liberal democratic (small-l, small-d) principles of equality, consent, freedom and avoidance of harm, and Christian (and humanist) principles of do-as-you-would-be-done-by. Nothing to do with biological origin at all.

quote:
And because humans (like some other species, thinking of chickens in particular) have a well-documented tendency to try to bully minorities, you're tempted to think that any disparagement of gay people by a straight person is explainable as being no more than that type of bullying. As an explanation of first resort.
Again, no. I don't begin with the assumption that anyone is a bully.

My default assumption about people arguing an anti-gay position is that they have been taught and believe that homosexuality is wrong based on some authority (usually religious) that they hold to for unrelated, and usually good, reasons, and are not prepared to discard because of this one difficult doctrine. I suspect many evangelical Christians in particular have made homosexuality as test-observance of Biblical authority, in the way that circumcision used to be a test-observance of the Jewish law: because Biblical authority is basically the one good reason for being anti-gay that any modern Christian can think of, if you "believe the Bible" in the approved manner, you'll accept that position, and if you don't, you won't. I think many Christians purporting to argue about gay rights really care more about maintaining a standard of scriptural orthodoxy than they do about other people's sex lives.

Anyway, that's my declared bias. I suspect some people will think it unfair, others that it's too charitable. I do try (not always successfully) not to let it get in the way of engaging with particular people.

The times in this discussion that I have suspected you of malice have been when:

a) you repeatedly use the obviously offensive comparison between homosexuality and crimes of molestation and rape (which you are still doing).

b) you misrepresent other people's arguments.

c) you purport to use words like "perversion" and "corruption" as neutral terms, which they clearly are not, and then equivocate on the meaning to draw moral conclusions from that 'neutral' observation.

d) you propose restrictions on people's liberty without asking yourself how you would respond to such restrictions, or, apparently, caring whether the people you are trying to disadvantage would feel the same way.

e) you consistently fail to produce any coherent justification for your moral disapproval, and appear not to see any need to do so.

None of those are inherent in the anti-gay position, though they are very common. It is those features of your discourse, and not your starting point, that are responsible for such antipathy as you may perceive in my engagement with you.

quote:
The conclusions that I'm drawing (from the premise that homosexuality is a defective sexual desire) are:
- that it's reasonable to think and talk about cure or prevention.

We discussed that above. But basically, we know exactly how homosexuality is "defective" - it's non-procreative (absent some imaginative work-around). If you want to discuss homosexuality solely as an issue of fertility, then first drop the homophobia. Then I'll put on my Vulcan ears and play the dispassionate scientist. Until then, I feel no obligation whatever to humour you.

quote:
- that whilst homosexual acts may be perfectly moral for those thus unequipped for heterosexual relationships, those who are not "gay-since-birth" but are merely confused or going through a phase should not be led to believe that homosexuality is an equally-good option for them.
As stated, we know exactly how homosexuality is "not equally-good". It's not as good at making babies.

But that's not a secret. You don't get same-sex bisexual couples turning up at fertility clinics to find out why, after months of trying, they aren't pregnant yet, then beating their heads in frustration that no one ever told them that one of them had to be a girl (or boy). No one who has the choice between a male and a female sexual partner is deceived about which option is the more likely to produce offspring.

How is giving gay people equal legal rights going to create any false believe about how homosexuality is, or is not, as good an option as the alternative? I don't see it. I don't think you do either. I think you object to giving people who disgust you equal status with yourself.

quote:
- that disgust at the idea of homosexual acts is not pathological (still less something malevolent - people are not responsible for what they feel) but is part of a natural hard-wired revulsion against sexual desire for the inappropriate (animals, infants etc). And that therefore whilst everyone should, out of consideration for others, exercise a certain amount of discretion in how much they publicize their sexual intimacy, homosexuals should be more discrete than heterosexuals are.
See the repeated comments above about disgust for sex generally seen in children (which my son, incidentally, shares, although my daughter appears to feel no distaste or embarrassment at all).

The "discretion" you ask of gay people is not even some particularly robust manifestation of a general "don't talk about sex" rule, though, is it? You want to stop them talking about their lives, their relationships, their families, the people they love most. Well fuck that.

quote:
I hope that those conclusions are moderate, reasonable and logical, given the premise.
You hope in vain.

quote:
If so. then the question comes down to whether there's a way to establish whether your premise or my premise is the true one.
None of your conclusions - not a single one - would be established if you could prove that biologically speaking homosexuality was a defect.

And it might be. I fully accept that. I rather doubt it (it seems far too common), but I can't disprove that homosexuality has that origin. It's just that, morally, it doesn't matter. Gay people exist. Either you accept that they are human beings worthy of equal moral and legal consideration with everyone else, or you don't. Why they exist is an interesting scientific question. It does not determine how we treat them.

So no, the question doesn't come down to that at all. You could be right about your premise (though, tellingly, I note you have never actually argued for it, or produced any evidence to support it) and you'd still be in the wrong.

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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"

Richard Dawkins

Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005  |  IP: Logged
Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748

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quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
Turning into Jeremy Clarkson sounds pretty bad to me.

It's not like I turn racist, or say, homophobic.

May be Russ would like to blame his medication too?

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Forward the New Republic

Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005  |  IP: Logged
lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333

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quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
It always comes back to the ick factor, doesn't it? "It's icky to me, therefore it's icky to all right-thinking people, therefore it's immoral."

This is what lies behind 90% of all homophobia, I'm convinced.

90% of homophobes or 90% of what makes an individual homophobic?
I think it is one factor for some people. I think there is also the "threat" to masculinity and fear of other.
An ex once asked me to perform an act I found "icky". It did not cause me to think of the ex as "icky". Familiarity with the person and not being a loony* allowed me to seperate a non-harmful, but not desired, act from the person. Threat to masculinity was not an issue, so just going on observation here.

*Ok, alright, fair cop. I'm just not that sort of loony.

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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou

Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008  |  IP: Logged
Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564

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quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
I think you object to giving people who disgust you equal status with yourself.

I don't think that's quite Russ's objection here. I think, in a very section 28-style way, he's objecting to the "promotion of the homosexual lifestyle". I think:

1. Russ thinks "being a practicing homosexual" is bad.

2. Russ divides people into three groups - the irredeemably gay, the straight, and those who could go either way.

3. Russ is prepared to tolerate the first of these three groups being gay in private.

4. Because of 1, Russ thinks it would be wrong to provide the third group with any encouragement to be gay. From this follow most of his desires to restrict the behaviour of gay people.

He doesn't want to make being gay low-status because he finds being gay disgusting; he wants to make being gay low-status because he's worried that being gay is catching.

Russ - am I close?

Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013  |  IP: Logged
lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333

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Good on you and Eliab for your being better persons than I, but you give him far too much credit.

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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou

Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008  |  IP: Logged
The Phantom Flan Flinger
Shipmate
# 8891

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quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
I've got the testicles of an ape whose ancestors put it about.

Eliab, there's only one place for that, and it's the quotes file [Smile]

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http://www.faith-hope-and-confusion.com/

Posts: 1020 | From: Leicester, England | Registered: Dec 2004  |  IP: Logged
RooK

1 of 6
# 1852

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Eliab, not only are your testicles impressive, so is your brutal and utter dismemberment of every aspect of Russ' flawed arguments.
Posts: 15274 | From: Portland, Oregon, USA, Earth | Registered: Nov 2001  |  IP: Logged
Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984

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You may be interested to know that if you google image "impressive testicles", literally the first result is Tom Cruise in a tuxedo. Make of that what you will ...

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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell

Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005  |  IP: Logged
Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238

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quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
And this is a heterosexual world. We are a heterosexual species - that is part of how we reproduce.

You are simply wrong. Yes, humans reproduce (hetero)sexually, but we are not an exclusively heterosexual species.

<snip>

Gay people exist. Either you accept that they are human beings worthy of equal moral and legal consideration with everyone else, or you don't.

I suspect one of the motives for defining humans as "a heterosexual species" is that it defines anyone who isn't heterosexual, by implication, as sub-human. This would, of course, explain Russ' hostility towards the notion that homosexuals are entitled to human rights or should be treated by the state as if they were the legal equals of (fully human) heterosexuals.

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Humani nil a me alienum puto

Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged



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