Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

OI! Homophobes! Over here!

682 replies

ooojimaflip · 10/12/2009 17:23

I'm genuinly interested in why you object to homosexuality, and everytime I ask on the other thread it gets lost in the general hubbub.

So - name change if you want, but please tell me what your objections are?

If it's because it's not natural or against biology, please expand your answer to include why you care about that.

Show your working for extra credit.

n.b. Don't bother if it's a religous justification, you'll need to find someone who believes in that kind of stuff to debate with as I'll just dismiss that out of hand. If you are a homopohbic religous person with a secular objection then please go ahead.

OP posts:
daftpunk · 10/12/2009 23:59

absolutely...i've never said they should be banned...they can do what they like..

what i object to, is lefties telling me i'm an uptight wanker with sex "issues"....just because i don't swing both ways, haven't got 6 gay friends and a lesbian mother...

fucking mental...

Original poster
ooojimaflip · 11/12/2009 00:02

Notanamechanger - Mama seems to have evaporated - I suspect she may not have been all she seems

I still don't understand your position .

OP posts:
Rindercella · 11/12/2009 00:03

DP...I don't swing both ways, I don't have 6 gay friends, and neither do I have a lesbian mother. However, I do think you are a tad uptight about it all. I wouldn't dream of calling you a wanker though, that'd just be rude.

daftpunk · 11/12/2009 00:04

notanamechanger;

no, funnily enough it wasn't my thread...neither of them were started by me...(but think there's a rumour i started both of them, you know how it is)

wish i knew who you were...

Original poster
ooojimaflip · 11/12/2009 00:04

Right, I'm going to bed to do unspeakable things. Well, I don't talk in my sleep as far as i know anyway

OP posts:
LeninGrotto · 11/12/2009 00:08

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

WilfSell · 11/12/2009 00:09

One argument for the reason homophobes are homophobic is that they can't bear their own repressed desire. According for Dr Freud. We are 'polymorphously perverse' but we learn familial and social conformity. In this sense, gayness is 'made' by society, but equally the implication is that actually we're all gay AND straight.

I think he had something. Though no doubt all the homophobes will howl in protest.

CarmenSanDiego · 11/12/2009 00:10

Right oojimaflip, but I don't think that behaviour is entirely isolated.

I went to a workshop by a guy called Tim Fountain once (google him if you have a strong stomach!) and he once put on a show which involved him surfing Gaydar. The audience voted on who he should sleep with and he left the theatre, slept with that man and returned the next night to tell the next audience about it.

I honestly felt quite icky after coming out from talking to this guy. He would literally sleep with anyone, for a laugh.

I don't know, I'm not approaching this from any religious or moral code, but I just find this sort of behaviour rather damaging and destructive.

CarmenSanDiego · 11/12/2009 00:12

I think there is perhaps an element of danger that comes mostly from certain men. Heterosexual men seek it from prostitutes. Homosexual men can perhaps seek it from each other?

I don't think it's unique to gay, but perhaps because homosexuality only involves men, it's easier for them to indulge?

Notanamechanger · 11/12/2009 00:15

Agree, dp - gay rights has swung too far and I think it is wrong that people like me should have to keep quiet about our views.
Ooji - I've stated my position several times. Methinks you have a crush on me! Fwiw I'm not butch so am perhaps your type, but you have to admit that a hell of a lot of lesbians could pass for blokes.
Good night all

dreamylady · 11/12/2009 00:16

I had to comment - not read the whole thread sorry - but the obsession with anal sex!
Not all gay men even have anal sex - but they still fancy and fall in love and have sex with other men. So are they oK then - is it homosexuality you object to (eg daftpunk) or just anal sex? If it is, I'm surprised you didn't know that lots of straight people, men and women, do this too.
Maybe its worth having a think about how it feels to only be attracted to people of the same gender. I have a couple of gay friends of both genders and I feel so sad for how they've had to live their lives, always a bit on the outside, always having to watch what they say. Even sometimes having to hide their long term loving relationships from ultra conservatives / homophobes, who might otherwise be lovely people, but just afraid of whats unfamiliar.

I sometimes think the phobia just comes from uncertainty and not knowing how to behave, what's the etiquette, how do you relate to a lesbian or a gay man where the usual rules don't apply. How do you know just how friendly to be and how to read the body language of someone who's sexuality is different than what you're used to. It can be tricky but only when its unfamiliar, which is when you overthink it.

Whatever the 'reasons' for 'gayness', its part of humanity, and it doesn't need to harm anyone, and it has its benefits, so hooray for our society being much more relaxed about it than we were 20 years ago. still some way to go but at least nowadays it does seem that if you're uncomfortable with gayness you have to justify it, rather than the other way round.

Kaloki · 11/12/2009 00:21

"Agree, dp - gay rights has swung too far"

Genuinely confused here, how?

dreamylady · 11/12/2009 00:22

ps interesting post by wilfsell, I'm not a fan of freudy stuff but i think there's probably something in that polymorphous sexuality thing - i sometimes wonder whether social pressures, one way or the other 'switch off' or supress desire for one or other gender. some lucky folk don't get anything switched off and can have their pick, provided the object of their affections returns the compliment

TisTheSeasonToBeHully · 11/12/2009 00:22

It's all about bums.

LeninGrotto · 11/12/2009 00:28

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

LeninGrotto · 11/12/2009 00:29

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Rindercella · 11/12/2009 00:31

Grr - adamant

TisTheSeasonToBeHully · 11/12/2009 00:31

Lenin - did I? What one? Quelle honneur. je suis tres flattered.

MillyR · 11/12/2009 00:31

I will quite happily admit to being a homophobe-phobe. I think it is quite justifiable to have a fear of homophobes; they have after all done some really terrible things to people over the course of human history in the name of homophobia - torture, rape, murder, removal of children, imprisonment and so on. Homophobic bullying is still rife in schools.

I do think that it is frightening that there are people who want to exclude children with gay parents buy not allowing them to mention that they have gay parents or want to ban references to gay parents from reading books or other materials children might use, which is essentially what is being argued for by people who say they don't want their children exposed to homosexuality in schools.

So I feel I can justify why homophobia is banned from schools and other public sector places (although what homophobic people do outside of the workplace and away from impressionable children is their own business, not mine); homophobia has a dark and unpleasant history and causes misery and distress to young people who are exposed to it. Of course we should be afraid of homophobia!

I don't think homophobes can put forward a convincing argument that people with openly gay identities have done anything more terrible over the course of human history than people with straight identities have done. So what exactly is their justification for wanting to keep the influence of homosexuals away from their children?

Rindercella · 11/12/2009 00:31

Bollocks, wrong thread, sorry

LeninGrotto · 11/12/2009 00:35

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

CarmenSanDiego · 11/12/2009 00:37

I agree that homophobia is very damaging.

My BIL spent forty years in the closet and it caused massive damage when he came out (after his father died). I feel he would be a happier, healthier individual now if he'd felt he could have just talked about his feelings more honestly.

A young man I know who's in his early twenties has been in a happy relationship since 16 or 17 and is very happy. He's always been accepted by his family and I think it shows.

almay292 · 11/12/2009 00:37

I once knew a bloke who thought his penis would fit into some sort of bottle ..but he was wrong. Well, it went in but he couldn't get it out. Not sure if that counts as natural but he certainly learned something.

I'm thinking 'Portnoy's Complaint' - nothing more natural than a slab of cold liver is there?

lolianja · 11/12/2009 02:50

I've probably missed a lot of sub-arguments but I just felt I had to ask something I've always been intrigued by. I don't think it can be said by any rational person that homosexuality is unnatural because by definition, it happens in nature therefore it must be natural.

But it's the 'sin' argument that totally baffles me. An act of love/lust/passion between two consenting partners that brings pleasure and happiness (however brief!) and hurts nobody... why is that a sin? How can it be compared to acts of violence, for example, or of theft, or deception, or humiliation? Or anything that causes hardship or pain? Can anybody who has claimed it's a sin provide any reasons why it is one?

Whilst I accept religion is still a significant part of many people's lives (including plenty of friends of mine) I'm just frightened by the prospect that somebody could choose to believe a rule/declaration with a) no real proof of its origin and b) no logical reasons to back it up. By all means believe what you want to believe if you truly do believe it, but if you think there's no moral or logical substance to it but choose to accept it as truth just because a book says so..... sorry, makes no sense to me. Particularly when that very same book condones slave-keeping and the slaughter of homosexuals.

Hope that makes sense.

ObsidianBlackbirdMcNight · 11/12/2009 08:27

the human body is absolutely designed for anal sex. And oral sex. And myriad other practices that people get off on. We don't get sexually aroused by armpit fucking. But the anus is an erogenous zone. Lots of people aren't interested in exploring it but that doesn't change the physiological facts.

Men all have a major erogenous zone up their bums. Zillions of straight men enjoy a finger or toy up their bums during sex for this reason. Again, the fact that lots of men aren't interested in exploring that doesn't make it not fact.

The clitoris has no function other than sexual pleasure. It doesn't help with impregnation. It is 'pointless' in evolutionary terms. But it exists, and we enjoy it. Likewise anal pleasure exists, and people enjoy it (gay, straight, male, female) and it's perfectly safe.