Apparently I am not allowed to swear in the titles of articles anymore! However, I assume no one will have any objections to me calling the infestation of homophobes that has shown up this week assheaded cockmongering fuckwitted douchefaces, because that is in fact what they are, and also no one has said I can’t swear in the contents of my articles except a bunch of hilarious and quickly deleted trolls. (See, dudes, Noah is (a) paying me and (b) my friend, so I’m totally okay with not swearing to make his life easier. If you want me to not swear, you can at least pay me. Ten cents per deleted swear word, please.)
The head of the Republican National Congressional Committee would like to point out that he is totally okay with gay people running for Congress, as long as they don’t use Congress as an opportunity to perpetrate their “personal crusades.” Personal crusades like, I don’t know, the Defense of Marriage Act, or funding abstinence-only education, or fighting the idea that women can have control over their bodies, or battling the increasing tide of people who think that whom other people have sex with or love is really none of their business? That sort of personal crusade? God, I’m so glad the Republican Party isn’t getting distracted from economic issues by any of that.
We also have a few from the National Organization of Fuck You.
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[Kitty with terrifying expression on face eats baloney. Caption: “my baloney has a first name, is nom nom nom nom nom…”]
First of all, they wish to explain to us that homosexuality is like incest. You see, the reason incest and homosexuality are wrong is that the people involved are similar in a structural way: for incest, kinship; for homosexuality, gender. See, I thought that incest was wrong because of the risk of negative recessive genes and of abusive power dynamics within the family setting that make consent at best questionable, but that’s just me, clearly it’s the similarity thing. Also, while we’re saying that people who are similar shouldn’t date, who decided that kinship and gender are the two most important things? Why doesn’t NOM object to my relationships because I’m dating an antisocial person who refuses to shut up about the topics he finds interesting no matter how uninteresting everyone else finds it? I think personality is way more fundamental to most people’s identities than whether one is a she, he, or zie. Holy shit, “geek” is probably the most core part of my identity and I’m only dating one non-geek, I am such a sinner!
Second, they want to tell us why people become gay. Is it:
a) A complex combination of biological and environmental factors that scientists have yet to fully sort out?
b) Sexual molestation?
c) Introversion for boys and being treated as a boy for girls??
d) Divorce and bad parenting?
e) Not fully embracing one’s masculinity or femininity?
g) b-e but definitely not A
h) Who the fuck CARES, it’s like asking why some people like beets, move the fuck on.
G? My readers are all fucking geniuses.
I find it interesting how interested NOM is explaining away male homosexuality, and how comparatively light is the section on lesbianism. “Lesbianism is probably the same as gay men or something, now let’s get back to the interesting bit!” Men choosing to do “feminine” things– such as have sex with men– is always much more shocking to the patriarchal order than women choosing to do “masculine” things. “But but but girl things are terrible, why do you want to have sex with men, that is a thing WOMEN do, aaaagh aaaaagh we must explain this for it threatens our power so much to know that some people might freely choose to do things we consider girly because they like them.”
Also I would like to point out that his explanation for male homosexuality is literally that being raped by men turns you gay. Just, you know. Throwing that out there.
Of course many straight men and boys question their masculinity and their sexuality after being raped. Hint: that doesn’t make them gay. Getting turned on by guys and not girls makes them gay. And they wouldn’t question their sexuality if people would stop saying stupid things like, I don’t know, as a completely hypothetical example, “being raped by a man turns you gay.”
It’s also true that lots of queer people were gender-non-conforming as kids (although many gender-non-conforming people turned out not to be queer, and many queer people are perfectly gender-conforming). That doesn’t mean that being gender-non-conforming makes you queer. Correlation is not freaking causation. There are many gay men who are perfectly fine with their masculinity, thank you, and even if they aren’t (maybe because they’re actually feminine) there is nothing the fuck wrong with that. It’s okay to be a guy and like Disney princess movies and knitting and sex with dudes, and it doesn’t mean that your fondness for Disney princess movies and knitting necessarily caused your fondness for dudes.
I’m sorry, I just love the idea that someone thinks “you like having sex with dudes, and we think that’s a Girl Thing, so therefore you must like having sex with dudes because you’re weird and broken and don’t like Boy Things and like Girl Things instead” is a reasonable explanation. Dude, hate to break this to you, but gender presentation and sexual orientation are different things.
Finally, in Cameroon, Roger Jean-Claude Mbédé was arrested and spent a year in prison for sending the text message “I’m very much in love w/ u” to another man. This stuff that NOM and the Republican Party is saying seems ridiculous, but homophobia has literal and horrific effects on people’s lives. People are still arrested, assaulted, and murdered for whom they love.
Great timing with this article, actually, ’cause just yesterday there was a bunch of rampant homophobia going on in Australia, too. The main story was that same-sex marriage was once again voted down in the Federal Parliament at a 2:1 ratio, even though it’s already been proven that more than half of Australians want it. As terrible as it is, it’s actually progress, which is both a nice thought and yet also really, really depressing. But the worst is still to come because one of the speakers made everyone’s favourite sickeningly genuine example of the Slippery Slope Fallacy – that’s… Read more »
I am always frustrated by people who tend to relate other sexual deviance to homosexuality in trying to explain their homophobia or justify being against gay marriage. (So if gays can marry can I marry my dog?) The common thread in sexual relations that we deem deviant is a lack of or inability to consent. Bestiality, incest, pedophilia, rape. One party in each of these situations lacks to ability to consent to sex or is actively objecting. The reason why these are criminal acts of sexual deviance is the lack of consent. Two people of the same gender who consent… Read more »
Being raped by a woman made me straight, I think.
O_O
(What gender are you, and what gender(s) were you attracted to before and after?)
I assume this is a joke…?
–Ozy
Well, to pay for less swearing is all nice and good. But how much do I have to pay to get more? If, say, I wanted to turn a post into a rambling madness of utter profanity, which renders it absolutely useless in every sense of communication and lets it exist in a transcendent state of essential, pure non-language?
Brilliant. Highlight their idiocy… and remember that unchecked idiocy has the potential to ruin lives. All done with humor. Am possibly in love with you… Just sayin’