To end this friendship now I know what she would really think of me….

[EmptyHouse0822]

I have a friend and we met because our children go to the same school. It started off as just chatting on the playground, then going out with the children and now we will also go out just the two of us.

We have been friends for about 2.5 years and I would say we are pretty close in that we talk to each other about our problems and we know we can trust each other.

Anyhow, this morning, completely out the blue she made some very negative and distasteful comments about lesbians and although she was trying to pass it off as a joke the undertone was clear that she thought the concept of two women together was quite unpleasant.

The problem is that even though she doesn’t know it, I am bisexual and so her comments made me really uncomfortable. Obviously I’m married with children so she would have no reason at all to suspect I can be attracted to women and so wouldn’t see any reason why her comments would upset me on a personal level.

Even if I wasn’t bisexual I wouldn’t have found her comments acceptable at all.

But now I don’t know what to do. I don’t feel like I can carry on this friendship knowing how disapproving she is of an aspect of my life but as we’ve been friends for so long and out children are good friends it wouldn’t make sense to anyone if I just pulled away from her.

I don’t know how to navigate this and I’m already dreading seeing her on the school run this afternoon.

AIBU to just pull back from the friendship and tell her why?

@TedMullins thank you, exactly. This endless straw manning is exhausting

The fact that a number of posters have reduced gay people down to their sexual acts (anal, oral, etc) says it all really.

This thread has disappointed me, I thought the UK was more progressive than this but maybe I'm biased living in a fairly sizeable city.

We have a real issue these days with some kind of forced teaming of thoughts.

She doesn't want men in women's sports.
She's a transphobic cow.

She finds rare steak disgusting.
She must be a vegetarian.

She's trying to stop her neighbours smoking weed because she hates the smell.
She must be a boring old fart, who hates unemployed people.

She hates watching same sex sex scenes.
She must be a homophobic bigot.

I know you've said it twice, but that doesn't make it right. Bigotry is hating people. Finding a certain act or the concept of an act objectionable isn't bigotry.

Unless I'm missing something, the only difference between gay and straight people is sexual attraction (and acts).

The fact that a number of posters have reduced gay people down to their sexual acts (anal, oral, etc) says it all really.

@Calphurnia88 The thing is for all we know OP's friend was just talking about a type of sex act. She said she didn't want to see certain acts, not that she finds gay people disgusting as people.

Well yes, that too. There is a lot of homophobia and excuses for it on this thread

Just gonna leave this here

Unless I'm missing something, the only difference between gay and straight people is sexual attraction (and acts).

@SlickShady Yes, but some people reduce it to acts/being about sexual behaviours, when same sex attracted people can be romantic as well as sexual if you see what I mean, their whole people. Like with a het person we wouldn't tend to go 'eww, PIV-f*cker' we'd see them as more than that.

*they're :)

I like good/honest/sincere people and their race/colour/sexual orientation etc does not even come into it.
So long as they don't have the temerity to marry one of your children huh @Raul57?

I hardly have a single friend for various reasons mainly me losing contact with all but some of my best mates at work have been from a different backgroud to me and they are often hit the headlines in certain crimes.
Eh? WTF has your workmates criminal activity got to to with OP, or homophobia generally?

True, but that's not what the OP's friend said. As a women she is disgusted by the thought of touching up other women, therefore she finds the sex act disgusting as a concept. She quite clearly said that.

This doesn't translate into finding lesbians themselves disgusting. Just as people who are disgusted by the concept of oral (in any kind of relationship), yet don't think people who do do oral are disgusting.

I find the concept of scat sickening. That doesn't mean I have any hatred towards people who do enjoy it, nor would I want to see them outlawed. To each their own, but personally even thinking of it makes me almost retch.

The thing is for all we know OP's friend was just talking about a type of sex act. She said she didn't want to see certain acts, not that she finds gay people disgusting as people.

No she did not.

She said that seeing gay men engaging on sexual activity was disgusting & nearly as bad as seeing lesbians.
She did not describe any specific sexual act. It could maybe have even only been a kiss or a bare-chested hug.

She didn't report any screaming at her DH to turn the tv off when straight sex scenes were depicted. She made a point of telling OP that is was because the scene was same sex.

So she's not objecting to sex scenes, or to specific sexual acts. She's objecting to gay sexuality, full stop.

@KettrickenSmiled

and she said god knows why any woman would want to touch up and do “who knows what” to another woman

She clearly was talking about the acts.

@SlickShady I think that cuts right to the point of the debate though… the “god knows why” part of it. We know why. Because they are attracted to each other. Maybe because they love each other and they’re expressing that love.

To assert you have no clue why two adults might be engaging in sex acts does demonstrate an underlying homophobia. She dressed it up as humour and confusion and distaste for the acts, but a majority of us here recognise it for what it is.

I don't think it's homophobic to find the image of two women together unpleasant- it's just a sexual preference. If we all thought two women having sex was a pleasant image we would all be lesbians. I find lots of unpleasant, it doesn't mean I disapprove of others who enjoy those things.

I'm not sure if this is homophobic really. It's certainly a bloody stupid thing to say out loud to people, but I'm not sure it goes further than that.

If I'm to be completely honest, I find the thought of 2 men having sex unpleasant. (I'm a heterosexual male). It's not that I'm against men having sex with each other, but generally if I'm having sex with someone, or thinking about having sex with someone, or thinking about two people having sex, I want to be attracted to at least one of them.

It's the same feeling I'd get if I imagined two 90 year olds going at it. There's nothing wrong with geriatric sex, but (most) people aren't exactly going out hunting for porn of it. Hell, I'd probably feel exactly the same if someone showed me a video of myself wanking.

I'm not turning the TV off if I'm watching something (for example Sex Education) and a gay sex scene comes on, but I'm not exactly thinking "Yay" or hunting that content out.

Of course, being a man and therefore taught from an early age that lesbians exist purely to make porn for men, I can easily point to lesbians and say "See, the idea of two women together turns me on, therefore I'm not homophobic", which the OPs friend obviously can't, seeing as she finds same sex coupling unpleasant regardless of the sex of them.

Finally, I'd imagine there's at least a subset of gay men and women who, when confronted with the thought of a man and woman together probably think "That's a bit grim". Or to go a step further, some asexuals probably think the same about any kind of sex whatsoever" I doubt you'd have people rushing to call them heterophobes.

The friend is still a bloody idiot for saying it out loud though.

She doesn't like the idea of sex between lesbians/homosexuals, this is not homophobic.
Saying that she hates them as people is homophobic.

I voted YABU because you've got a very black and white view about friendship. I would pull back slightly but you don't need to either cut the friendship off or be best best friends. I'd keep the friendship, keep it light. I have many friends whose views I fundamentally disagree with (Tories!) and friends who think my Christian beliefs (which are very precious to me) are a 'fairytale' - but they are still my friends because there are a lot of other things I value in our friendships. I do challenge them if they say something I find unacceptable but they don't seem to change their views really. It can be hurtful to live with very occasionally, but life is not that simple or black and white, and they bring much joy, depth, support in other ways at other times.

You've missed out the part where she said:

My friend said it in relation to a programme she’d been watching with her husband which was about the Gay scene (males) and she told me she’d made her husband turn it off because it was disgusting and not something she wanted to see.

I highly doubt this was a television programme about anal sex.

She's allowed to feel that way for herself.

And of course she can fuck right off to the far side of fuck.

(From what you've written) She didn't say she thought homosexuality was grim & disgusting, she said the sex was. Last I heard, homosexuality is sbout a lot more than just sex.

I don't think it's homophobic to say you find it gross to watch or to imagine doing yourself.

someone 'straight' might find heterosexual sex gross to watch.

there are things I enjoy 'in the moment' that in the cold light of day and while working/doing the housework/whatever I think sound FAR from appealing.

@EmptyHouse0822 I would just see how things go. I think with most family/friends, you need to learn to ignore the bits of them
you don't agree with.

if it's 'just' the 'sex bit' she can't get on board with, but doesn't have any issue with gay couples then I'd just let it wash over me, BUT if she was saying 'it shouldn't be allowed' or 'they shouldn't have kids' or whatever, then I'd definitely back off a LOT.

I'm the one being hysterical and calling people names, @KettrickenSmiled? It's not a straw man to point out that you called all people with a homophobic viewpoint guilty of 'appalling bigotry & ignorance'. Sometimes people have genuine religious objections, and sometimes they are indeed ignorant ie. have had no exposure to a differing point of view. I don't think calling these people names is helpful. You don't get people to change their opinions by being so aggressive or dismissive.

Just to make it clear, I very much dislike homophobia, but I live in a part of the world where people haven't encountered it so much, and you therefore occasionally encounter people with some old fashioned attitudes about it. Just like many of us might find with our elderly parents, for instance, who grew up in a different time and culture. I say I disagree, but I don't write them off for their supposed 'appalling bigotry & ignorance'. But then I suppose I lack your moral virtue.

Some gay people are repulsed by the thought of straight sex, hence being gay. Is that not the same?

This doesn't translate into finding lesbians themselves disgusting. Just as people who are disgusted by the concept of oral (in any kind of relationship), yet don't think people who do do oral are disgusting.

But sex acts, like oral sex, are a choice. It is an act that a person chooses or chooses not to based on their preferences.

My sexuality isn’t a choice, it’s intrinsically who I am.

It isn’t a case of her views being okay because it’s not something she’d “choose” to do herself.

By her saying that women touching each other up and doing “God knows what to each other” is grim, is attacking something that is a part of who I am, it is not having differing views on something I choose to do.