Fujiology Archive/fujiology_archive_v1_0.iso/!MAGS/TRYST/TRYST12.ZIP/TRYST12.MSA/TEXT_GAY_BOB.WAL

Text File | 1998-12-14 | 15KB | 276 lines

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                      T H E   R I G H T   T O   R E P L Y

                                   ---oOo---

Barbara takes Bob to task for homophobia, Bob replies, and jfw stokes the flames

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Well,  Bob seems to have stirred up the proverbial can of worms (or should  that
be  'hatbox  of  stoats'?)  with  a few comments he  made  in  KelAUG  11  about
"homosexuality being promoted as normal behaviour".  Barbara wrote in with  some
strong objections to Bob's views,  so I passed her letter on to Bob and sat back
to wait for the flames...

Bob's  reply is about ten times longer than Barbara's objections,  and opens  up
some new angles for discussion,  so I've cut and pasted everything together  and
added my own views at the end.

john


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                      Bob's original comments in KelAUG 11
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It  was suggested [by Chris Holland in his 'Right to Reply' piece] that I  might
be "latently homophobic". Not true. I am quite openly homophobic and, although I
would  not want to do physical harm to homosexual people,  it is my own  opinion
that their sexual activities should be confined to the back of well locked doors
and  that  their  deviant behaviour should not be  flaunted  in  public  places.
Contrary to what seems to be acceptable nowadays,  gayness, for want of a better
word, should not be touted to young impressionable people through various media.
Gays should never be allowed to adopt kids, and public displays of gay affection
should result in collars being felt. It's not normal, no matter who says it is.

Bob



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                               Barbara's response
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Homophobia: Who defines, who has the right to define, what is 'natural' and what
is  not?  There  are  instances  in the 'natural'  world  where  animals  become
temporarily  homosexual and stop mating with females at times when there is  not
enough food to support their offspring. There are peoples where the females just
do not become pregnant in times of famine or drought.

Being homosexual is natural to the people who feel this way and if we are saying
they  can't express affection in public places then perhaps neither  should  the
rest of us.  Homosexuals are people too,  they have the same propensity to  pain
and being hurt.  They are not a new deviant species' they have been around since
time immemorial - look at the ancient Romans for example.  Maybe this is one  of
nature's ways of limiting population - who knows!

I  agree we don't need anyone's sexuality thrust at us but I think Bob needs  to
talk to a few homosexual people about their experiences in a heterosexual  world
and open his mind to their problems and swallow his prejudices.

In my work I have met many interesting people who happen to be homosexual.  Most
of them do not flaunt their sexual preferences any more than heterosexual people
do.  Don't judge everyone by the actions of a minority,    mostly show  business
people whose business it is to attract attention! All most homosexual people ask
is  the  chance to go about their lives quietly without having to  contend  with
other people's prejudices.

Sorry  to lecture but I feel strongly that people in minority groups should  not
be  stigmatised  and discriminated against just because they don't  fit  someone
else's perception of what is 'normal'.

I  am sure Bob will not agree with my response to his homophobia but it  is  his
problem not the problem of homosexual people in general.

Barbara


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                        THE HOMOSEXUAL DEBATE PART DEUX
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                      Bob's response to Barbara's response
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Barbara's points in the letters page merited more space than might be  available
there, so I thought we'd maybe continue this discussion as a separate article.

Barbara has obviously met quite a few gay people and has found them to be  quite
nice and genuine people and on that subject she is definitely one up on me,  as,
coming from a small village,  I'm maybe more insulated against these people than
she is.  So I must take her point that there are many gay people who are  caring
and useful citizens.

But...

What  I dislike about the whole gay hype that seems to have descended  over  the
last  ten or fifteen years is that being gay seems to be increasingly  portrayed
as normal.  It isn't.  The talk of animals reverting to homosexual behaviour  in
times  when food is scarce and no little animals are desired is a bit  funny.  I
haven't ever heard this theory before and I do take a more than passing interest
in  the  natural  world via books and TV.  Most animals are  only  aroused  when
confronted  by  the whiff of another of their ilk (which is like  a  big  deer),
which  is  sexually  'ready'.  So I have to enter Frank Muir mode  now  and  say
"BLUFF".

It  sounds  too much like a contrived argument put about by some  willy  woofter
trying to defend his claim of normality.  As far as I'm aware only humans engage
in  sexual  activity purely for the fun of it,  all other animals  use  sex  for
procreation  and nowt else.  Therefore male-female is normal,  and male-male  or
female-female is not normal.

I have a great belief that media coverage of any type of event is very likely to
encourage the copying of that same type of event by those who see the  coverage.
The  freedom  of the press is sometimes the cause of many  incidents  like  city
centre rioting, football hooliganism, and maybe even drug abuse. If these things
weren't  put  about  so graphically when they happen,  then  maybe  less  people
knowing about them wouldn't be a bad thing.

I  think  the  same goes for being gay.  If it wasn't  constantly  portrayed  by
prominent  celebrities that being gay was 'cool',  then I very much  doubt  that
you'd see as many young people getting into it.

Take  George Michael the other evening on Parkinson.  For years and  years  he's
desperately hidden the fact that he's gay,  but now that he's been caught out in
the  most public way possible then he's suddenly proud to be gay.  If  you  were
proud of it Micky, why wait until you were caught giving it the careless wrister
in public bogs before you announced it to the world.  He declares that he wasn't
doing  any harm as there weren't any kids present and nobody was hurt.  Well  it
was  a public convenience in a public park mate,  and if you had gotten down  to
some serious podging and some dad had wandered in with three kids needing a  wee
wee,  you  might  have got hurt if the dad removed the stick-on grin  from  your
chops.

What is it with homosexual men and public bogs anyway?  If they were into caring
and loving relationships then why don't they meet people,  date them for a while
and  then,  as  feelings grow more solid,  take the sexual side  from  there.  I
believe the term is "cottaging" or summat,  but surely looking for casual  rumpy
in public places is to be condemned innit?

Now this might not be the most popular point to make,  but,  while we're on  the
subject,  why  are probably 80 per cent of lesbians (there's no easy way to  say
this),  pig ugly?  I don't mean to offend,  but seriously,  when you watch those
'After Dark' type shows which discuss relationships and discrimination and  porn
and page threes,  why is it that the lesbian members of the panels are just  not
good looking?  When you watch documentaries about gays and gayness and clubs and
bars, the women are "bowf" as we say up here in Scotchland.

Now I'm not about to say that I believe that a gay woman is just one that  needs
a 'good seeing to',  but maybe if they could get a bloke then they wouldn't bend
in the direction that they do. Maybe not of course.

Anyway,  lastly,  discrimination. Nobody should be discriminated against because
of  their sexual preference.  Nobody should be physically abused because  of  it
either.  But,  people with confused sexual leanings should always be aware  that
many  people  will be offended by their actions if they flaunt  them  in  public
places.

If  a gay man comes onto a six foot four hairy heterosexual coal miner in a  pub
and  gets his hooter pounded because of it,  then he was obviously  pulling  the
cat's tail a bit and couldn't really be surprised if it scratched.  Likewise, if
blokes  get it on in a public bog and get caught out they've got to be ready  to
take what comes as a result of their actions.

Gay  relationships are the business of consenting adult partners and  should  be
conducted in the privacy of their own homes.  That way nobody will be  offended,
therefore nobody will bother them and,  even better,  they will have peace to do
whatever it is they want to do.

Bob

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                  any space left for a liz and john response?
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Well,  to  start with,  we think you're both wrong,  but Barbara's probably  the
least wrong.  (If you see what I mean.  This is being written off the top of our
heads only a few hours from the mail-out.)

Liz  and  I agree with most of what Barbara said about  'normality'  (what's  so
great  about about being 'normal'?),  but we find it hard to believe that  there
are  "instances  in  the  'natural'  world  where  animals  become   temporarily
homosexual  and stop mating with females at times when there is not enough  food
to support their offspring".

We'd be interested to hear more about these instances,  because they go  against
most of what we know about nature.  The normal methods of population control  in
mammals  are  to  either  eat the young,  or  to  re-absorb  them  during  early
pregnancy.  That applies mostly to smaller mammals.  Larger  mammals,  including
humans,  stop  ovulating  when their body fat falls below a  certain  level,  as
happens during starvation.

The one thing that mammals don't do,  as far as we know, is change to homosexual
behaviour as a result of population pressure.

Some  animals,  such  as  sticklebacks and dogs (to give  two  wildly  different
examples,  sorry  about  the  pun) use mock-homosexual  mating  (everything  but
penetration)  to establish dominance within a group,  but the only animals  that
engage in true homosexual behaviour (including penetration) are the higher apes,
such as the bonobo and homo sapiens.

The difference,  as Bob rightly points out,  is that we higher apes are on  heat
all the time,  which makes us the 'perverts' of the natural world. Other animals
follow  a  hard-wired urge that only occurs at the time or times  of  year  when
they're  ready to breed.  But us apes are rarin' for it all the time,  and  have
divorced sexual stimulation from procreation.  In other words, as the bonobo and
hom sap both say, "if it feels good then do it!"

But  we  think Bob's wider of the mark when he says that  gayness  being  trendy
probably encourages young people to try it.  First off, why shouldn't they? It's
their  bodies.  Secondly,  if they're not naturally inclined that way  then  why
should they try it again?  C'mon Bob,  give people credit for having at least  a
grain of common sense.

OK, true confession time. Both Liz and I have tried gay sex. In my case, I liked
the scene that went with it (this was during the decadent seventies,  London gay
pubs, Bowie and glam rock) but I couldn't get a hard-on and didn't try it again.
But  at least I learnt something about myself,  that I wasn't gay.  Liz  had  an
affair  at her boarding school and decided she was exclusively gay.  (It  was  a
good  way  of  winding her parents up,  but didn't work because  they  were  too
tolerant...) Liz believes that we're all potentially bi-sexual,  to some degree,
but with her it works better with men.  Women could have been an option for her,
and might still be, if her life had turned out differently.

But when it comes to public attitudes towards homosexuals then we're totally  on
Barbara's side. People are people, no matter how they get their thrills, and all
that matters in the end is "are they kind?"

As for 'cottaging' I think that's a relic of the old days when homosexuality was
illegal,  and most gay sex had to be anonymous for fear of the  law.  "Aha!",  I
hear  you say,  "then how come they're still hanging around the bogs  when  it's
legal?" I honestly don't know,  but some of it's probably down to the thrill  of
getting off in a public place,  that extra excitement that comes from the chance
of being caught. Don't tell me you've never felt that yourself, Bob, that you've
never  done  it with a woman in semi-public,  just for the sake  of  that  extra
thrill  that  comes  from knowing someone might walk around the  corner  at  any
moment?

But I'd definitely agree with you that public toilets aren't the place for  sex;
it just gets in the way of people trying trying to pee, and there's nothing more
off-putting  than seeing the guy next to you peering over the porcelain at  what
you're holding in your hand. It really puts you off, doesn't it?

And  we reckon you're way out out of line when you say that,  "probably  80%  of
lesbians  ...  are  pig ugly".  How many lesbians do you know  Bob?  Or  was  it
something you read in the Sun?  The problem is that most people who are  visible
in any 'underground' group are probably the least representative of it (and this
goes in spadefuls for gay groups). They're more likely to be the exhibitionists,
the  people  who  enjoy winding up the straights with  their  cropped  hair  and
boiler-suits. (I had a cropped head once and it didn't do a lot for my looks...)

OK, end of rant. (eor)


john & liz




                                  ~~~ eof ~~~