Peter Tatchell says bisexuality will be the new normal for many

So, Tatchell has taken up having sex with women?

🤔

Offensive on purpose requires a bit of forethought and the ability to think on your feet

So I reckon youre right…its not the third possibility

I tend to try and give the benefit of the doubt. So it's either rushed and poorly grasped because of careless reading or yes, a comprehension issue. The third possibility is being offensive on purpose, I hope it's not that.

In such a hurry to get in what they think is a gotcha or zinger they don’t actually read the original post properly (or indeed at all)

Hate to break it to you Arabella, but we're not in a relationship.

That's why she said "reminds me of" not that she actually is in a relationship

In his dreams

I’m speechless how dare some one say this about lesbians I’m appalled I really am.

Holothane Lesbians have been told they need to 'learn to cope' with hetero sex so as not to distress male people who identify as women. And the head of Stonewall likens being homosexual and stating your identity and preference to being racist.

Yes, I agree with you. I'm homosexual, and anyone who has a problem with me setting boundaries about my own body... it's going to go on being their problem. I seem to remember something about 'acceptance without exception'. But apparently, like most of this politics, it only applies to some and not others, separating the world into two tiers. The givers, and the takers.

I’m straight I’m damned if I’m going to to say I’m bi sexual for a woke idea.

It's a live question from an anthropological POV whether people who live in societies like this actually experience their sexual desire in an entirely different way. And for that matter there are a few societies that don't have a concept of same sex activity at all, and the same question arises.

We have a tendency to assume our experiences of sexual identity or at least desire will be mirrored everywhere because they are prior to culture, but that's not at all clear.

Corgi, I do think the word 'boundaries' is important to look at.

It's not the same as 'a widening choice' or a 'broadening view' or some other similar phrase which one might have considered more appropriate when talking about people's sexuality or orientation changing.

When we're talking about sex and sexualities/sexual orientation, the word 'boundaries' can surely only relate to consent? No?

@ditalini no gay and lesbian people do not need to open themselves up to being straight because when they were growing up, the ‘norm’ is to be straight. The societal expectation was to be straight. Pretty must every adult in the UK (and possibly world) today has grown up with adverts, tv programmes, films, songs, books and adult chat all around heterosexual relationships and heterosexual sex.
Gay and lesbian people have gone against that ‘norm’ that’s been ingrained.
Things are changing now of course but only very recently so any adults will still have grown up with heterosexuality as being the norm.
As the PP said, when 30/40+ somethings were growing up, being gay just wasn’t done mainstream. It wasn’t accepted in the same way as now, not even close.
I had some lesbian encounters as a teen and let me tell you, I told no one. Not even my closest friends and certainly not my family. I would have died on the spot if my family had found out.
I would have loved to have had a longer lesbian relationship but it just simply wasn’t talked about or accepted.
I met a man young. Married and had kids.
I know I’m bi. Perhaps even leaning more towards women than men but I wish so much that I was a teen in 2021 and could have explored that more as now I will never know.

Some thoughts:

1. This isn't in itself a new idea - I've often heard people say that sexuality is a continuum, with lots of people in the middle, e.g. 70% straight, 30% gay or vice versa.

1. Have also heard it argued that the identities "gay" and "straight" are new and that eg the ancient Greeks didn't have the concept of homosexuality, they just thought it was perfectly normal for adult men to have sex with women and boys.

1. But what is Tatchell's motive? Is there any sign at all that Tatchell has ever been attracted to a woman? Is this something he has ever admitted to?

1. My suspicion is that Tatchell is directly attacking the idea of boundaries, specifically the boundaries lesbian women have against having sexual relationships with men or trans women.

1. He may also have in mind other boundaries, such as the taboo on adults having sex with younger people. (Choice of wording is deliberate to avoid deletion.)

It's been known to psychology for a long time that men are much more prone to all kinds of sexual disorders. I think that whatever kind of development goes into the formation of male sexuality etc it's just more easily messed up.

The other thing is, women tend to be the main limiting factor in sex. Where you get instances where the sexual availability of women is for some reason not a factor, large numbers of men rack up very high numbers of sexual partners. One of those instances are where men are mainly seeing prostitutes for sex, and another is where there aren't actually women involved. This is at a statistical/population level of course.

So the PTs of the world who embrace that are coming from a lifestyle where people are just having very high numbers of sexual partners, often from the mid teen years. It's what they like, but also I suspect being part of that ends up forming your emotional attachments in a different way than a man who has a different experience. And he and people like them believe that is what real sexual freedom would look like for everyone and it's what most other people would like too if only they weren't hemmed in by social expectations.

And this to me always links back to a man so in denial of the harm done to him that he has to create another narrative, a reframing of it in which it was a good thing and everyone should do it. When it so very very obviously wasn't good for him at all and the evidence is in this behaviour.

Agree. I wanted to add something similar, but couldn’t think how to frame it. You have done so nicely

Perhaps some people are born to have such sexualities, but listening to some of them definitely gives the impression they’re justifying something in their own heads and are therefore offensive and defensive.

Not to mention the framing of this which is essentially:

Some people put boundaries on their sexual consent and interests.

Others find this behaviour intolerable.

Why? Because it presents them with boundaries they do not like.

So this is about forcing some to change their sexual consent and inclinations to not be about them, but to centre on meeting the needs of others.

Shall we all stop here and go and do the Freedom Programme? Because someone who responds like this to 'no' and to 'but my choices are' with 'but your body is all about me' is not good relationship material. How they choose to label their sexuality is irrelevant. Head for the hills from anyone who treats you like this.

Why are soo many men obsessed with sex? So many of these threads about men - activists, sex therapists, men in power, men writing about psychology and opining about what ifs, end up with some saddo with a sex obsession.

And this to me always links back to a man so in denial of the harm done to him that he has to create another narrative, a reframing of it in which it was a good thing and everyone should do it. When it so very very obviously wasn't good for him at all and the evidence is in this behaviour.

I think at this point I'm going to take a rather bizarre exception to the use of full stops which obviously imply that you're all a bunch of kitten hating reprobates. Since that appears to be the new fashion.

It is very odd how desperate some appear to derail threads and to simply invent things to derail and complain about if the actual thread does not provide it. The question it raises for me is: why is this conversation so dangerous that it has to be so urgently derailed?

Tatchell seems like one of those men who are

1. obsessed with sex and
2. view their obsession as a kind of moral superiority,

Presumably, like Stonewall, he considers his position to be one of “acceptance without exception” and holds himself up as an example of how everyone could be, if only they could open their minds enough.

However in reality, he is unaccepting and scornful of those who do not share his proclivities and he considers us morally inferior. He is holding up his vision of how things could theoretically be, based on his own narrow experience.

I’m not that my ‘rigid and exclusive’ stance on my sexuality will ever change just because this man thinks it should.

I won’t be swayed when society becomes more accepting either.

The only thing that will be blurry as I march from my prime towards my dotage will be my eyesight.

What is it you're getting from this, Blueberry? At this point you're just here trying to be as hurtful and unpleasant as possible. Why?

Thanks, Errol. Never can be sure if it's me who's going a bit mad. Gosh it doesn't half remind me of being in an abusive, gaslighty relationship. But I always like to try and remember Hanlon's Razor.