Sorry if someone was made to feel unwelcome

[GetOrfAKAMrsUsainBolt]

I refer to a complaint made to Rowan on the 'sleeping with the enemies' thread - it was made by a gay woman who felt that she was being made to feel unwelcome.

I don't know exactly what the complaint was but I assume it is to do with the lesbophobia terminology used.

I am really sorry if that has upset someone - it is not a word intended as an insult. I only used it in context of an argument about vile thread a few months back. In that thread a MNer (who happened to be gay) stated some very distasteful and triggering views, and a good number of MNers complained about it and rebuked her on the thread. Another MNer (call her X) said that this was a mark of 'lesbophobia' (her words) and that a lot of MNers were homophobic.

This was strongly contested by lots of people - I am not homophibic in the least, and neither are most of us on here, there are plently of long standing gay women on MN, and some were raised in families with gay women, so for a great sweeping statement of 'you lot are lesbophobic' was bloody out of order.

Hence the reference to it on that thread. I am sorry that it was upsetting, it is certainly not a word I use and I only used it in the context of the above. I can see that at best it looks like ignorant flippancy and at worst looks insulting. So please accept my apologies.

Rowan - if you want to delete this thread as you don't want another bunfight please can you forward my apology to the MNer mentioned by you (I am going to report this post but I think this is the best way to communicate directly with MNHQ). Thanks

MmeL

I remember that couple - they were lovely weren't they - and I think we had the same conversation over here!

I love how its really just not a big deal to them. Like skin colour - until grownups or society teach them that having a certain skin colour is somehow bad, they are colour blind. Well not colour blind exactly, just colour-unaware.

Well, I guess I would like to see girls taking more control over their bodies and fertility so they don't end up having babies by deadbeats in the first place.

Professional adults crapping on to them in school about 'loving relationships' is clearly not working.

Sorry, but DD (16) has an ex-school friend with a toddler. And it's not a happy story; and people in that girl's life should be strung up.

Linerunner
I like that explanation and will steal it, if you don't mind.

It isn't something I have thought about before so I am grateful to those who have shared their thoughts and experiences.

Hearts
yy to colour unaware. I recall DS telling me about his friend in school and I asked who he meant. He pointed out the 'boy in the red tshirt over there', seemingly completely unaware that his friend was the only black child in the entire school. It did not occur to him to say, 'the black boy in our class'. Instead he described him by his clothing.

No worries, Mmelindor, but I want a linky!

oh, I meant for my own kids, but I might also use it on a blog post at some time (or a variation of it)

;)

Big debate that, Maryz. Do we hammer the contraception message into girls more than boys? Or vice versa? Equally? How?

It always seems that girls carry the consequences to a greater degree, so why do they have unprotected sex unnecessarily? I don't believe the myth (and neither do most of them) of them 'getting pregnant to get a flat'. I think they do it because they believe this shit they're told that sex equals love - and in the media with which they are surrounded, love means total exposure.

MmeLindor, you should so blog 'subversive MN teachings on teenage sex'!

I think that the zeitgeist of Sex is Love and Love is a Roller Coaster and the culture of strange and false romantic dependancy is the only way to explain the really high teen pregnancy figures here in England, Maryz, where in theory all teenagers have access to sex education and contraception and all girls have access to the morning-after pill and abortion - for free.

I think it would be humane to do so.

I've seen many Irish posters saying about a visit to the GP being so expensive.

Maryz - that really is shocking in this day and age.

I dunno. would they look a lot different than a good relationships now - where there is mutual respect and value for each other's contribution?

But what won't change is that kids take a lot of committed looking after for a long time.

Equality, respect for all, recognising people's contribution to society are all good things, but none of them are going to get people to get up night after night for random babies, or look after random toddlers etc...

There are all kinds of families arrangements where people will do this - nuclear, extended, single, blended, adoptive etc...good ones do involve love, mutual respect etc...I agree whatever works for each person, and no hierarchy of 'ideal models' but I am not sure there is another model, as yet untried that would become the norm in a non-patriarchal society.