To be utterly shocked that someone in their mid 30's can hold such sexist and homophobic views.

[Needsmorecake]

Just got back from a date which my instincts told me not to go on....

Wish i had listened to myself as ive just had a coffee with the most sexist and homophobic arse i have ever met.

He started a rant about ' poofs' which he didnt stop when i said i had lots of gay friends, nor when i tried to change the subject.

His sexism left me open mouthed.

Im dumbfounded that someone who is 34 can hold such views.

It's more common that you think I am afraid

Many people are stuck in 1973

When I go to Cornwall for holiday is still get people asking of they can touch my hair ffs

I think the age reflects an expectation that a man of a certain age would cede to the ideological fashion of the time.

To me, only most useless dross of the male species is fickle or impressionable for that to matter. Independent personality ftw.

impressionable enough^ for that to matter

Oh and also my sister is gay and is one of the most homophobic people you will ever meet she is 30

flomp, yeah, it just that hes the same age as me, he had the same education as me, seeing as we were from the same town, we have some mutual friends, so i expected him to be similar.

I dont expected older people to be more close minded, but im less surprised if they are, because views and society has changed.

Who did you expect to hold these views then, OP? Old people? People over 45? People over 60?

Homophobia is alive and kicking in people younger than 34, to be honest. In some ways, you're lucky: he was blatant about it!

ahlahtuhflomp I have three problems with your post.

1. you think not being a homophobic arse is fashionable. No, not really.
2. you think not being a prejudiced arse makes someone the ideological equivalent of a Dedicated Follower of Fashion.
3. you are so unindependent of thought, you have repeated the ridiculous phrase 'male species' and you have never looked up what 'species' actually means. Male species- oxymoron.

Hey, let me just google that for you.

lmgtfy.com/?q=define+species

Ha, I'm from East Anglia too and my god, it's so very weird going back to visit and coming from Brighton to do it, Brighton and Clacton are two completely different worlds!

I think outside a very narrow MC band racism and homophobia are still perfectly normal.

My parents and my younger (43) DSIS aren't that comfortable with homosexuality, lesbians confuse DSIS utterly. Non university graduates in a 99% white rural area, they wouldn't be deliberately racist, but I'm certain many of my home village would say coloured or half cast, without meaning any offence at all. I still find calling someone who isn't very dark skinned black faintly ridiculous.

I'm 46 and had a lovely black flat mate at university, but i think the modern very exact PC language has come in since I returned to rural obscurity. I can't remember Y and her friends getting very hung up on language. Panicking about late essays, but not racial terminology.

My very working class, didn't do well at school, but still very sweet and well meaning, doesn't think twice about casual anti Muslim comments. One day I'll really have to have a word because I don't like them and many of the more educated people who might employ him are likely not to like them either (he's just 30, but not terribly mature).

Is it a big deal? People have their own standpoints, and can often be reasoned with or just agree to disagree.

I think a very large number of straight men dislike homosexuality on a visceral, natural level without necessarily wanting to project that at other people or hurt/judge them, so this outspokenness seems unusual.

On the other hand, people do so much pretending these days if their views differ even slightly from what Harriet Harman would approve of, he might just be avoiding that kind of pretense and being honest, which might actually be a really good thing.

Well meaning, neighbour

I know plenty of people my age that are sexist and homophobic.

I live in East Anglia though

spin

1. ILDGAF what problems you have with my comment, it was not submitted for your approval.
2. "Male" "species" is obviously intentional, so if you're going to be a pedant, try not to miss very obvious things ffs.

for the record i dont ' expect' anyone to hold homophobic views.

Its abhorrent to me.

My parents might be ' less comfortable' with the idea but would certainly keep it to themselves.

Its just to come across someone the same age, with a similar background in terms of education etc, its damn shocking to me. They live in the same world i do, i find it hard to wrap my head around how they can think like that, and be so vocal about it.

ConfusedPixie I know, right? I've thought the polar opposite thing they've got going on would make a marvellous novel. Juxtapositional as fuck too with the piers and whatnot. :)

by the way it has been clinically proven that those men with the strongest anti - gay views have the strongest erectile response to gay porn.
sadly there is no link for this random factoid.

I'm in East Anglia too. It's rural, it's true blue Toryland and is full of people with sexist, racist and homophobic views. I don't think such views are as uncommon as cake thinks once you're outside urban areas, sadly.

If anyone starts spouting that shit around me they will get my unvarnished opinion back, but them I'm shirty assertive.

I'm not convinced it's an education thing though. I went to one of the top private schools in London (through total scholarship) and there were absolutely tons of extremely homophones pupils and parents. .. All supposedly well educated.

I think it's more to do with social exposure. Meeting and listening to lots of different people from different backgrounds and having the social intelligence (not necessarily academic) to be able to embrace ideas and so on that might be different from your own.

Ah, that obvious fall-back, "I was being deliberately ignorant".

No, your post, and the ones that follow, are genuinely pseudo-intellectual. Bit of bolstering your opinion with technical vocab you don't understand, some appeals to nature and some jibes about people having fashionable ideologies.

It'll be 'sheeple' next.

It doesn't surprise me. I'm currently embroiled in an argument with a 30 something bloke and some arse of a woman who believe that Ken Roache's accusers made it all up.

They can't understand that no conviction only means there wasn't enough evidence for the jury to convict, not that the abuse didn't happen.

"of the male species "

No such thing, dear. Male OF the species. HTH.

Homophobic! Not homophones. Thanks autocorret.

But holding homophobic views and airing them isn't just 'being honest about it your thoughts' it's being an arsehole.

Not random factoid at all, Nigellasdealer - as you and someone else up the thread said, there are numerous well-regarded peer-reviewed studies demonstrating this. A big one in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology in 1996, but others since. I can't remember why, but I once read something about the apparatus used to measure erectile response in this kind of study, and now I find it amusing to imagine any homophobe I come across with his penis strapped up to the pressure cuff and unwillingly glued to gay porn.

Ahla, I'm not sure I understand your point of view. You seem to be suggesting that being homophobia vs not being homophobic is an unimportant difference of opinion, akin to liking liquorice allsorts vs preferring fizzy cola-bottles.

Of course it's a big deal. Ask a gay person whether homophobia is important.

East anglia here.

Nothing new I don't think I've seen a gay couple as in out holding hands/kissing or anything like that around here. I know of a lesbian women but never seen her with a gf or anything only with her daughters.