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Re: Slutwalk

Postby Senethro on Wed Jun 08, 2011 6:49 am

Hennessy wrote:Totally flattered that argument had such an impact on you Sen. Leaves me wondering how many sinners have trawled through my post history at some point.

I'm not sure how it comes across to you but that snippet basically says I argue for things I believe in rather than arguing for the sake of trying out different points of view or testing what I've learned in my PY module this week. It doesn't say anything about hating reasoned debate, it just deplores the stylising of arguments to the point of illegibility.

The fact you were able to go back and look up such a brilliant little paragraph (did I really write that? My stuff gets better with age :D) gives you another good reason why people should be registered - so we know what they've said in the past in relation to a topic. A history gives you a personality doesn't it?


I would characterize your writing as smug, affectedly blokey and irritating. I was appalled that the word swordplay had stuck along with our respective usernames that enabled me to google it up. I'm fairly sure the mental image associated with the memory was one of jousting, rather than swordplay though.

You just look like you'd rather vent about some women really actually being sluts, or people making documentaries and articles that make you angry.


Please God then post your own thread. I give this forum the digital equivalent of a pity fuck every couple of weeks or so by putting up stuff I hope will get a debate going. So far apart from piling in on Redcelt nobody seems to want to talk about anything, unless you count the constant bitching and using unregs.[/quote]

christ just take this forum round the back already and shoot it someone please
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Re: Slutwalk

Postby Senethro on Wed Jun 08, 2011 7:03 am

RedCelt69 wrote:
jollytiddlywink wrote:I think that people have, broadly speaking, three objections to what you are arguing for in this thread.

I'm always wary of people who claim to be speaking on behalf of others. Unless you've had a meeting, agreed on some key points and had yourself declared as the spokesman. Otherwise, how about you describe your own objections, rather than attempt (that grand old logical fallacy) argument by numbers.

I've said it before and I'll no doubt say it again: truth is not democratic.

jollytiddlywink wrote:1. Saying that all movements should come under humanism is an entirely theoretical proposition

Damn and blast anyone who suggests a way of improving things, eh? I'm not suggesting that demonstrative people become less demonstrative. I'm suggesting that they are demonstrative under a unified banner. Minorities would achieve more if their voice was less of a minority. A unified voice, demanding that all humans be treated like humans (by other humans) rather than their subset being given equality. Rather than the three readily-provided minority positions, how about dwarfs being treated more fairly? Or gingers? Or albinos? Or any other minority position by which that position really is a minority - with practically zero representation.

jollytiddlywink wrote:"We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal..." didn't prompt Jefferson to free his slaves and then treat them as equals, or try to get his wife the vote. By and large, it was black people and women who won for themselves the measures of equality they have now.

By and large? Are you aware of the work of non-blacks and non-females towards that aim, or don't they matter? My blog page contains (among other portraits) JS Mill and Mark Twain. Both men were very vocal in the support of female equality. You'll find very few feminists listing either man in their history of the movement.

jollytiddlywink wrote:And as for you asking how I know that there weren't humanists at the Pride Parade in Moscow, I'll tell you how I know. There were, according to all the reports I can find, very few people there. No more than 30. They are all identified as "gay rights campaigners." Not so much as a hint of humanists.

Is a person's belief system existent upon their beliefs, or upon the labels they give themselves? For all you know, all 30 of those people were humanists. For you to say that none of them were was a position based on... what (other than projection)?

jollytiddlywink wrote:evidence of a large number of humanists doing lots of stuff is required

Not by me, it isn't. I'm proposing how humanism can be, not how it is or how it was... as it has had various meanings since the days of Socrates. It already does campaign, but saying that the campaigning isn't loud enough or prolonged enough does nothing whatsoever to challenge the idea that all minority campaigners united under humanism isn't a better and much stronger fighting position.

jollytiddlywink wrote:3. You do your own "I believe that all people are equal" "we are all the same" case absolutely no good by calling people who don't entirely agree with you fuckwits

And here, your fuckwittery outshines itself (and gives me cause to tell you as much). I don't call everyone who disagrees with me fuckwits. Never have done, never will do. There are lots of people who simply disagree with me, but do so without completely misunderstanding my position. If someone tells me that 2+2 isn't 4, then I'll call them a fuckwit. If they can agree on the basic premises, but disagree on matters of opinion... I don't think of them as fuckwits. I think of them as people with differing opinions. And that's a good thing. In fact, that's a very good thing indeed. It would be a boring world if everyone had the same views.

Fuckwits are the ones who completely fail to grasp the basics, use logical fallacies, or... y'know, a whole list of potential things that demonstrate that they are, indeed, fuckwits.

Intelligence is not a binary state. It is on a sliding scale. To some, you most definitely wouldn't be described as a fuckwit. To others you would. Unless you have some bizarre notion that everyone posting and reading here are on a tableau of identical intelligence... you shouldn't be too surprised when you're called on it by someone more intelligent than you. And, based on your performance in this thread, you're not teetering on any apex.

jollytiddlywink wrote:For all that I disagree with macgamer, I've got to admit that I've never seen him call anyone a half-evolved idiot. Nor have I ever seen him respond to people's questions and arguments with sound-effects or photos of kittens. He at least has the courtesy to actually read what people have argued, and attempt to address their points in written English.

I've not been counting (and I sometimes skim-read) but I believe that you've raised macgamer's name twice in this thread now. My guess would be that you're wishing that I was just as much of a fish-in-the-barrel to debate with as he, but you're a tad peeved that you're (to use your parlance) losing this one.


Look at these goalposts rapidly zooming towards the safer subjective territory of personal opinion and things that are hypothetical. He can make assertions which might be true while providing nothing of substance to persuade us of this. Meanwhile, he is calling us out on real actual factual things wot happened as being other than what they appear. (pride protesters as crypto-humanists? No evidence to the contrary!)

RedCelt, your wallowing in ideological wank fantasies and lack of understanding of minority perspectives is why a larger humanism hasn't arisen. Its why there were only 30 at Moscow.

You just don't have a personal stake in the matter.
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Re: Slutwalk

Postby macgamer on Wed Jun 08, 2011 9:30 am

G13 wrote:An aside to macgamer on non-hetero sexualities and homophobia: I've read you before on the topic and I don't believe that discussing it with you would be remotely productive. And I said, no etymology: homophobia means, having a problem with non-hetero sex and/or sexualities. And, uh, while you may not Mean to cause offense to individuals, your homophobia Is offensive, certainly to the people it applies to, which explains why might not take kindly to you! You might just have to live with that, or better still, if you can't say something without showing your homophobia, just don't say it.

It depends on what you mean by 'problem'. Having a 'problem' with something often means strong negative emotions are involved. This is not the case. Additionally, I've said many times before that I would oppose any movement to criminalise homosexual acts such as what Uganda tried to do. However I cannot support attempts to redefine marriage. I'd be supportive of a legal mechanism for the purposes of tax, inheritance, visiting rights etc, but not marriage. I'll look at that YouTube clip at a later point, but in terms of adoption, I think the rights sit with the child rather than the adoptive party.

In terms of 'homophobia' and being offensive, I would not be so insensitive as to have this discussion with homosexuals unless my opinion was consulted. I'm not a heartless person, the issue often raises strong emotions in people and such discussions can be as you say, unproductive and cause offense (unintended on my part). However that does not mean that these discussion should not be had in a calm fashion in a suitable forum. Surely it can be productive and improve mutually understanding? I feel that I've learnt something during this thread, hopefully you and others can realise that I am interested and wish to gain greater understanding. Most importantly too, it is my hope that I am not misunderstood or come across as a complete bastard.

You made an interesting point that I shall make a few remarks about:
If you don't, you're reminded of this fact persistently in many small, and occasionally large, ways. The consistent message becomes "I don't belong here, this world is not made for me". For some people, it becomes easier to deal with by saying "I am xyz" to attempt to stop quite so many wrong assumptions being made, or if not so publicly, at least giving one a space where one fits as opposed to feeling always out of kilter with and not belonging in the everyday world. For some people, it's easier to deal with a world that is forever forgetting that people like oneself exist when one has a strong sense that one is indeed the way one is. As Senethro says, people who have the identity that the world assumes for them don't need to claim it or even be consciously aware of it, because it's all laid out already.

This is a good explanation (in addition to JTW's) why alternative sexual indentities are adopted. I think I've seen the term 'hetro-normative' used a few times on this thread, but with negative connotations. If society and culture is hetero-normative it seems that this just a reflection of the sexual attraction and identity of the majority of the population. The feeling of being 'out of kilter' with the rest of the world is perhaps the internal reflection of what one's attraction is and one it 'should' be in terms of concordance with society's expectations, but more importantly biological gender and the biological function of the sexual act i.e. reproduction.

[As a caveat to what I have said, I am not apportioning any moral rightness or wrongness to sexual attraction - there is none. But there is an implicit consideration of the functional rightness or wrongness of the attraction per se.]

So yes I see why adopting a sexual indentity helps people cope in a 'hetro-normative' society and culture. It is coping with discordance by realigning indentity with attraction achieve concordance. Others may chose to live with the discordance however, which is particularly heroic.

Regarding macgamer's terminology: I don't particularly agree with what you're doing here, but I understand where you're coming from and what you're trying to achieve. Personally, I interpret "man with same sex attraction" as refering to any man who has any degree of same-sex attraction; if you want it to mean "predominantly", I think you have to say "predominantly".


Thank-you for engaging with what I wrote. I think the two terms also indicate another difference. Gay / homosexual are generally taken as adjectives describing persons who have adopted a homosexual identity and are likely to be pursuing relationships emotionally and physically. Same-sex attraction is merely describing in which direction the emotion and physical attraction lies without any connotations of identity or practice. This latter term has some applications.

About the Kinsey scale, mentioned by Jollytiddlywink and macgamer. I appreciate that some people find it a really useful tool for expressing their own orientation, and that's fine by me, I've got no wish to take it away from them, but I would like to say that it's not an adequate tool for expressing everybody's orientation. There are people whose orientation just can't be expressed that way. For example, a bisexual person who is more attracted to men one day, or week, and women another: their orientation at one particular time can be pinpointed on the scale, but what about their overall orientation? People who like masculine identifying and/or presenting folk - masculine men and not feminine men, butch women, butches? People who like androgynous folk? People who like most identities/presentations other than masculine men? The list could continue. Personally, I'd say it's fine for folk to express their own orientation on the scale, but not to ask someone else to do so, or to try to fit anyone else onto the scale. Some folk will just not be able to answer the question, and it suggests that orientations outside of the scale just aren't in the asker's world-view.

I quite agree with you. Attraction is very much a complex topic, which can doubtfully be contained and placed into neat boxes, much as we all might wish. So how does this affect identity? It strikes me that because there are these artificial divisions and 'boxes' some people shoe-horn themselves into them so as to attach themselves to a cohesive collective identity, rather than adopting a unique individual sexual indentity, which is without that collective security.
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Re: Slutwalk

Postby macgamer on Wed Jun 08, 2011 9:40 am

jollytiddlywink wrote:For all that I disagree with macgamer, I've got to admit that I've never seen him call anyone a half-evolved idiot. Nor have I ever seen him respond to people's questions and arguments with sound-effects or photos of kittens. He at least has the courtesy to actually read what people have argued, and attempt to address their points in written English.

Coming from JTW that certainly is a compliment. My sincere thanks. :D

RedCelt69 wrote:I've not been counting (and I sometimes skim-read) but I believe that you've raised macgamer's name twice in this thread now. My guess would be that you're wishing that I was just as much of a fish-in-the-barrel to debate with as he, but you're a tad peeved that you're (to use your parlance) losing this one.

But lo! another insult. A 'Fish-in-the-barrel' debator, I'll have to remember that one. I suppose if RedCelt69 regards JTW as a 'half-evolved' idiot, I really must be what Hennessy would regard as 'white noise' to RedCelt69.

But I do agree with RedCelt69:
RedCelt69 wrote:Truth is not democratic.
"Progress should mean that we are always changing the world to fit the vision, instead we are always changing the vision."
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Re: Slutwalk

Postby Hennessy on Wed Jun 08, 2011 11:17 am

I would characterize your writing as smug, affectedly blokey and irritating. I was appalled that the word swordplay had stuck along with our respective usernames that enabled me to google it up. I'm fairly sure the mental image associated with the memory was one of jousting, rather than swordplay though.


You can google it? How? When I put our usernames in I just get this thread. I'd like to know if one of my better arguments was so visible!



christ just take this forum round the back already and shoot it someone please[/quote]

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Re: Slutwalk

Postby Senethro on Wed Jun 08, 2011 5:13 pm

gonna count me some prejudices related to heteronormative stuff yeah
macgamer wrote:
G13 wrote:An aside to macgamer on non-hetero sexualities and homophobia: I've read you before on the topic and I don't believe that discussing it with you would be remotely productive. And I said, no etymology: homophobia means, having a problem with non-hetero sex and/or sexualities. And, uh, while you may not Mean to cause offense to individuals, your homophobia Is offensive, certainly to the people it applies to, which explains why might not take kindly to you! You might just have to live with that, or better still, if you can't say something without showing your homophobia, just don't say it.

It depends on what you mean by 'problem'. Having a 'problem' with something often means strong negative emotions are involved. This is not the case. Additionally, I've said many times before that I would oppose any movement to criminalise homosexual acts such as what Uganda tried to do. However I cannot support attempts to redefine marriage. I'd be supportive of a legal mechanism for the purposes of tax, inheritance, visiting rights etc, but not marriage. I'll look at that YouTube clip at a later point, but in terms of adoption, I think the rights sit with the child rather than the adoptive party.

1. Assumption that the rights of the child are being violated in gay adoption.

In terms of 'homophobia' and being offensive, I would not be so insensitive as to have this discussion with homosexuals unless my opinion was consulted. I'm not a heartless person, the issue often raises strong emotions in people and such discussions can be as you say, unproductive and cause offense (unintended on my part). However that does not mean that these discussion should not be had in a calm fashion in a suitable forum. Surely it can be productive and improve mutually understanding? I feel that I've learnt something during this thread, hopefully you and others can realise that I am interested and wish to gain greater understanding. Most importantly too, it is my hope that I am not misunderstood or come across as a complete bastard.

You made an interesting point that I shall make a few remarks about:
If you don't, you're reminded of this fact persistently in many small, and occasionally large, ways. The consistent message becomes "I don't belong here, this world is not made for me". For some people, it becomes easier to deal with by saying "I am xyz" to attempt to stop quite so many wrong assumptions being made, or if not so publicly, at least giving one a space where one fits as opposed to feeling always out of kilter with and not belonging in the everyday world. For some people, it's easier to deal with a world that is forever forgetting that people like oneself exist when one has a strong sense that one is indeed the way one is. As Senethro says, people who have the identity that the world assumes for them don't need to claim it or even be consciously aware of it, because it's all laid out already.

This is a good explanation (in addition to JTW's) why alternative sexual indentities are adopted.

2. Description of non-straight identities as alternative can present them as not normal.
I think I've seen the term 'hetro-normative' used a few times on this thread, but with negative connotations.

3. Resentment of use of terminology. How would you feel about being described as cisgender?
If society and culture is hetero-normative it seems that this just a reflection of the sexual attraction and identity of the majority of the population.

4. Excusing hetero-normative society.
The feeling of being 'out of kilter' with the rest of the world is perhaps the internal reflection of what one's attraction is and one it 'should' be in terms of concordance with society's expectations, but more importantly biological gender and the biological function of the sexual act i.e. reproduction.

5. Putting should in quotes was good, but implying that certain attractions put you out of concordance with your biological gender or normal function is wrong on so many levels. Its disrespectful to minority orientations implying they are "broken" men and women and to everyone else for the primacy you are placing on the reproductive act as being the measure of function.
[As a caveat to what I have said, I am not apportioning any moral rightness or wrongness to sexual attraction - there is none. But there is an implicit consideration of the functional rightness or wrongness of the attraction per se.]

6. A good demonstration of why you ignore anything said before "But" !

So yes I see why adopting a sexual indentity helps people cope in a 'hetro-normative' society and culture. It is coping with discordance by realigning indentity with attraction achieve concordance.


7. Implication that these are coping mechanisms the poor broken queer needs to deal with exclusion from the totally awesome hetties.

Others may chose to live with the discordance however, which is particularly heroic.

Oh god damn, you've just undone everything good about your post. You were doing pretty well, I had to get the really fine toothed comb out and even the prejudices I was pointing out weren't just too awful.

This one is. Its saying one of two things.
8a. Either that gay people should not have a gay identity and should assimilate into heteronormative society.
8b. Gay people are praiseworthy when they act against their intrinsic orientation. You are saying gay people tryign not to be/act gay are good.

The first is belittling but the second is outright obnoxious.
Regarding macgamer's terminology: I don't particularly agree with what you're doing here, but I understand where you're coming from and what you're trying to achieve. Personally, I interpret "man with same sex attraction" as refering to any man who has any degree of same-sex attraction; if you want it to mean "predominantly", I think you have to say "predominantly".


Thank-you for engaging with what I wrote. I think the two terms also indicate another difference. Gay / homosexual are generally taken as adjectives describing persons who have adopted a homosexual identity and are likely to be pursuing relationships emotionally and physically. Same-sex attraction is merely describing in which direction the emotion and physical attraction lies without any connotations of identity or practice. This latter term has some applications.

This would be fair enough except that Same Sex Attraction is often capitalized and is a term employed by people who oppose the acceptance of homosexuality. Its a loaded term so just be cautious how you employ it.
About the Kinsey scale, mentioned by Jollytiddlywink and macgamer. I appreciate that some people find it a really useful tool for expressing their own orientation, and that's fine by me, I've got no wish to take it away from them, but I would like to say that it's not an adequate tool for expressing everybody's orientation. There are people whose orientation just can't be expressed that way. For example, a bisexual person who is more attracted to men one day, or week, and women another: their orientation at one particular time can be pinpointed on the scale, but what about their overall orientation? People who like masculine identifying and/or presenting folk - masculine men and not feminine men, butch women, butches? People who like androgynous folk? People who like most identities/presentations other than masculine men? The list could continue. Personally, I'd say it's fine for folk to express their own orientation on the scale, but not to ask someone else to do so, or to try to fit anyone else onto the scale. Some folk will just not be able to answer the question, and it suggests that orientations outside of the scale just aren't in the asker's world-view.

I quite agree with you. Attraction is very much a complex topic, which can doubtfully be contained and placed into neat boxes, much as we all might wish. So how does this affect identity? It strikes me that because there are these artificial divisions and 'boxes' some people shoe-horn themselves into them so as to attach themselves to a cohesive collective identity, rather than adopting a unique individual sexual indentity, which is without that collective security.

Yah, but who causes this? Is it non-straight people unnecessarily partitioning themselves or is it caused by the heteronormative assumption of people being attracted to the other gender that prevents unique individual sexual identities?
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Re: Slutwalk

Postby Hennessy on Thu Jun 09, 2011 2:13 am

Just to put us on topic again before Senethro threatens to whisk us off to the very dullest corner of the sociological library - heteronormatively or not - the sluts are due to march!

http://www.thefword.org.uk/features/201 ... f_slutwalk

Yay! Even though reading that article made parts of me cringe I didn't know existed, I'm sure the attempt to "reclaim" the word slut by women isn't going to work. Here's why:

For you to reclaim a word you have to convince everyone the definition has changed. Otherwise the word itself splits and has different meanings to different people. So while the Slutwalk seems to have turned into women getting other women to meet the word with indifference rather than shame it doesn't matter because if they are ever in a group of people who do believe the word has a valid application then the whole thing falls apart. Let's try that situation out:

MALE: You're such a slut

FEMALE: That word doesn't mean anything to me any more, I will not be defined by your patriarchal capitalist concept* of what a women is or isn't based on what she wears or how she acts. (LEAVES)

SECOND MALE: She was such a slut.

MALE: (shrugs shoulders) Yeah.

The word still means something different to the males in that scenario. Hence there is very little I can see our slutty sluts achieving with their walking and pleasantly ironic billboards. (Anyone else notice how white and middle class that crowd is? I bet there's a couple of degrees there on average for each person. All the poor black girls must be too busy getting a job in that patriarchal capitalist society)

* That term is actually used in the linked article if you care to read it.
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Re: Slutwalk

Postby RedCelt69 on Thu Jun 09, 2011 2:43 am

A simpler solution is to remove the gender assignment: call promiscuous men sluts, too. Or stop judging other people based on the number of people they have sex with. Or, more easily, stop caring about people being judgemental.
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Re: Slutwalk

Postby Frank on Fri Jun 10, 2011 11:03 pm

In danger of concurring with RedCelt, on the 'slut' point on it's own (i.e. gender-loaded words), I'd say the trivial solution is just to call men sluts. Thus weakening the load on women? It hardly deals with the associated issues, but it seems the sensible first port of call (though it hardly requires a long stop in port either).

RedCelt69 wrote:
jollytiddlywink wrote:I think that people have, broadly speaking, three objections to what you are arguing for in this thread.

I'm always wary of people who claim to be speaking on behalf of others. Unless you've had a meeting, agreed on some key points and had yourself declared as the spokesman. Otherwise, how about you describe your own objections, rather than attempt (that grand old logical fallacy) argument by numbers.

I've said it before and I'll no doubt say it again: truth is not democratic.


In the spirit of not agreeing with RecCelt, I'll say: this is a big pile of nonsense.

You can speak on other folks' behalf if it's noted you're tentatively inferring. The logic of your argument should, if you've measured it right, make sense. JTW's arguments/claims hold up to inspection by a fellow (fellow to RC) white, cisgender ostensibly straight person.

E.g. if you can speak truthfully on behalf of others, you can do it without democratically polling the folks you're speaking for. (And what RC's suggesting here isn't actually a very representative thing, it's just: 'do you have anecdotes to support that?')

To chime in further: Hennessy's talking tripe about the registering thing. It'd be nice (and, alas, it does conjure the notion of cowardice) if anons'd register, but it's hardly an important factor.

And to echo a much earlier sentiment, G13: insightful and well put throughout.

---

On humanists not helping out

Well, there's an obvious case I hadn't heard caught. The assumption that those who identify with the '-ists' are those who feel legitimately concerned. In the cases discussed, we're talking about walking towards a better society with a more sensible/representative/well-understood dispersal for the social norms, right? So gay and women's rights (arguably the more serious than race-rights, world-wide) would be properly on par, there wouldn't be ingrained and preposterous (when noticed [referring to the 'cisterns don't know what's it's like' line of thinking]) discrimination.

Why are humanists not doing this? Well, because they find it difficult to 'get involved' with women's rights and gay rights. Certainly, beyond high school (where, as there wasn't an obvious gay or feminist community to identify), I surely stood out from time to time for banging on about things like has been discussed in here. At Uni, well, it was a whole different kettle of fish. Women, I tended to have more interaction with and, I hope, I was somewhat more encouraging and not too condescending about the whole thing. With the gay community, however, I just felt...excluded. Somewhat obviously, really. I wasn't motivated to get involved (it wasn't a personal issue, so it's difficult on that front alone) and without that...well, it's hardly surprising that being an 'armchair LGBT acceptance enthusiast' is really a go-nowhere hobby.

That's a go-nowhere line of think, but I think it informs the humanist aspect of the discussion. Certainly, in the years I was a Catholic (up to '07), it took a long, long time to account for my otherwise non-Catholic humanist leanings. Perhaps the ridiculous, unstable combination of views was obvious to others (JTW seems most reasonable commenter here, being my eldest academic brother), perhaps not. It's not really the point.

Rather: it's difficult to support the idea that feminists (and their kin) are 'doing humanists a favour'. Conversely, put to the idea that I myself occupy the privileged position (can I summon anti-Catholic discrimination as a kid? I suppose I can, but I shouldn't, so I won't), then there is a case to say that the others are doing me a favour. Or at least: my interests are fairness for all. My privileged position leaves me unable to get properly (well, to my satisfaction and my inclination) involved. So, to an extent, they're working in my interests.

Except they're not, of course. Well, they're not wholly acting in my supposedly noble interests. It's difficult for me to speculate on my supposed wish to preserve my privilege, but I'm less significantly (and more efficiently) able to account for the fact that obviously protesters don't represent my own views.

It's largely why I don't protest, even on student fees and so forth: the vast bulk of the protest seem to actually want different things to me.

Which leads to a pretty obvious criticism of humanism: it, like agnositicism, scepticism, atheism and so forth, doesn't offer much motivation in response to the don't-want-to-seem-condescending desires of someone who is interested in changing things for the better but doesn't have something particularly or clearly relevant to rally for. It has even less motivation to lend to someone like myself who has a certain contempt for a lot of things people do rally for.
A second order of privilege in being crippled/castrated by my distance from incensed/motivated groups though empathetic enough to actually agree on a number of points?

More likely a backwards rationalisation for lacklustre involvement in those sort of protest-y shenanigans.

(Though, accepting I've little calibration but my own experience, I'd like to hope I've leant a lot of support to others' issues, at least more than simply wittering about it on the internet.)
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Re: Slutwalk

Postby G13 on Sat Jun 11, 2011 12:18 pm

Edit: the first paragraph reads very differently to what I actually wanted to say, but I've left it so that another user's post makes sense. For what the hell I actually mean, please see 15/06 3.13pm.

Frank, I'm not keen on "crippled" being used to denote something incapacitating. I looked for a decent link to explain so as not to take up space here with yet another topic, but I couldn't find one that wasn't embedded in the middle of a huge article/paper, so folk will have to put up with my explanation briefly here. Basically, it uses disability as a metaphor for something bad. Someone who is crippled simply can't walk, or walk in the same way as most folk; they may be able to get around well enough, they may be kick-ass awesome at everything that doesn't involve mobility, or they might be a wheelchair athlete who is decidedly more physically capable than I (person with no mobility difficulties): none of those folk are remotely incapacitated or incapable. I don't like the mainstream discourse which unthinkingly codes being crippled as automatically lacking and incapable.

Personally I would rather not rank different kinds of oppression; I don't believe it's helpful. Just to say about race, with black people in the US more likely to be convicted and receive a harsher sentence than white, numerous studies of black US children repeatedly pointing out the darkest doll/picture as the ugly/stupid/bad child, harmful and damaging skin-lightening creams marketed and sold to black women the world over, pictures of non-white women in magazines being repeatedly lightened, and endless anecdotes from black women about the many times they've been told they'd be so good-looking if they were lighter and the times they begged their mother to put bleach in the bath-water when they were kids, I'd say the world has a fairly damn hideous racism problem.

I know that "gay rights" is often what it's called by the movement itself, but this is problematic to me. I find this another example of the societally-most-superior group within a group becoming dominant and overlooking others. It's man-centric and homosexual centric. I see "gay rights" and think, am I even wanted here? Do people even remember that non-straight people are not always gay men, and that we have different experiences? Am I excluded from what I would hope would be my own community?
Last edited by G13 on Wed Jun 15, 2011 3:17 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Slutwalk

Postby G13 on Sat Jun 11, 2011 12:30 pm

RedCelt,

JS Mill and Mark Twain. Both men were very vocal in the support of female equality. You'll find very few feminists listing either man in their history of the movement.


You’re straight-up wrong about one of these: John Stuart Mill’s “The Subjection of Women” is in the feminist canon alongside essays by Harriet Taylor Mill. JS Mill would be on any list of “thirty most famous/influential feminists”, and his book is essential reading for “first wave”/early feminism. If he’s not on the “most most famous” list, that would be because he was “first wave”/early, and it’s “second wave” folk who are mostly the best known, as that’s when the ideas and approaches we have today really began to take off.

I’ll repeat that your knowledge of feminism and feminists is, at best, limited; you repeatedly present total inaccuracies as fact.

Mark Twain is a different case. It’s excellent that he vocally supported women’s rights – good man, Mark Twain. But there’s no record of him being particularly feminist in his personal life, and as an author, while I’m aware of his book about Joan of Arc, not having read it I can’t comment further, but in his most famous works, Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, the protagonists are all male, and the female characters are no different from what was expected of women at the time. On that basis, he was certainly no feminist author, and it’s as an author that he’s remembered. I don’t see why feminists should particularly laud him for his support of women’s rights when there’s a hundred or more more significant and influential people, many of whom were women who would be forgotten otherwise in a male-focused society. You don’t get cheered for supporting a group’s rights; you just get to be a decent human being.
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Re: Slutwalk

Postby G13 on Sat Jun 11, 2011 1:05 pm

Macgamer,

There’s no need to put –heteronormative- in scare quotes: heteronormativity isn’t the state of being hetero or the fact that more than half of people are straight. Heteronormativity is the expectation that everyone is straight, the belief that being straight is the best or “right” way to be, and the assumption of prescribed gender roles. To me, someone who marries a person that society thinks is appropriate for them to marry, has 2.4 kids, a white picket fence and a pet poodle, if they genuinely wanted all those things, that’s not heteronormativity. If they did it because they never thought about it, that’s just the way it is for everyone, then that’s heteronormative. Someone can be heterosexual without being heteronormative: a relationship with woman bread-winner married to a househusband isn’t heteronormative. The reason heteronormative always has negative connotations is that it describes a society where one script is considered better than another, and where people forget that other scripts exist. I have no problem being in a minority; I Do have a problem with people leaving no room for that minority to exist.

I clearly read that you’re not meaning to offend, that you’re trying to marry being a decent human being with your beliefs, and that you’re interested in genuine discussion and learning. I find your approach generally respectful; but some of the beliefs you show I find deeply offensive.
The feeling of being 'out of kilter' with the rest of the world is perhaps the internal reflection of what one's attraction is and one it 'should' be in terms of concordance with society's expectations, but more importantly biological gender and the biological function of the sexual act i.e. reproduction.
Firstly, nonononono, please do not mix gender identity (“biological gender”) and orientation. They are very different things. Gender identity is about what gender you know yourself to be, and orientation is who you’re attracted to. Believe me, gay men, lesbian women, bisexual folk, are all capable of knowing that they’re attracted to someone of the same gender while being entirely secure in their own sense of gender. The implication that someone might be attracted to a person of the same gender because their Own gender identity is iffy, or conversely, that the same-sex attraction (goodness, I’m using it now :) ) makes one less sure of one’s own gender identity is offensive, not because there’s anything wrong with folk with non-normative gender identity, but because it’s suggesting that there Has to be something else going on with being attracted to people of the same gender. Two women can’t possibly fancy each other, one has to be “less woman”!

People do not feel “out-of-kilter” because there’s anything intrinsically wrong with their orientation. People feel “out-of-kilter” because society is full of homophobic messages. To use a not-that-good illustration, if you have blue eyes, but the majority of everyone around you is always talking about how much better brown eyes are, and in fact regularly tell you that you do, actually, have brown eyes, after a while you would begin to doubt your own sanity, probably wish you had brown eyes, and finally wind up shouting “I have blue eyes, blue eyes, look at my lovely blue eyes, aren’t they fabulous!” even though you actually don’t think it makes a jot of difference What colour eyes anyone has. If only folk would say, “oh yeh, you have blue eyes – now, new more interesting topic”.

Others may chose to live with the discordance however, which is particularly heroic.
This made me feel ill. Now I don’t know every person in the world, so I can’t say that it’s Never heroic. I can say that in the vast majority of cases, it is not heroic, it’s tragic. People live in a version of hell when they are unable to accept and/or live their orientation; it often causes severe mental health problems, and there are too many suicides of young LGB folk. People can spend decades being desperately, desperately unhappy, and not that good a person to be around. What could that person do with their life, what kind of a person could they be, if they were just free to love who they loved? What a waste of a life. That’s not heroic, that’s tragic.

I realised what about your analysis was putting creases in my brain. You talk about attraction and identity, but under identity you’re mixing two separate things: action and identity. It’s perfectly possible to have same-sex sex and not identify as gay, lesbian, bi, queer, or whatever. The most obvious example of that would be a man who has girlfriends/is married, etc, is determined that he’s straight, and yet has sex with men. Personally I’d suggest that such a person is in denial of their orientation, but I’m not them. Another example is, I once came across a woman who was openly married to another woman but did not identify as lesbian (or bisexual or queer, for that matter). I wasn’t in a position to have details, but she was very definite about it. She was married to the person she loved, and the gender of the person she loved was utterly irrelevant to the rest of her life, and that was the end of the matter for her. The identity category is more complex, I think; it has to do with one’s assessment of one’s place in the world, one’s community and political affiliations.

“Functional rightness or wrongness” of same-sex attraction just makes me shudder. It implies that there’s something less natural about it, less ok about it, and that it’s intrinsically “better” to be attracted to someone of the other standard sex than the same, “better” to be straight than LGB. As if those of us who are attracted to folk of the same sex/those of us who are LGB should try not to be if we could possibly help it. No. I like who I like, and no person feels more right or wrong than another – not on the grounds of gender, anyway. “Functional wrongness” of LGB desire/relationships tends to be only one toe away from “those homos are unnatural, euch... stop those homos/pity those homos/cure those homos.” No.

You say that you agree that attraction can’t be put in boxes, and yet you seem to put it there yourself. I’m not sure whether it’s in your thinking or whether it’s a problem with the terminology: “I would not be so insensitive as to have this discussion with homosexuals...” Do you mean only homosexual people, or do you mean anyone who isn’t hetero? And if you mean only homosexual people, do you think that non-monosexual people would find it less of a potentially sensitive subject? If you mean non-hetero people, can you be more inclusive (not to mention accurate) with your terminology, because right then, (probably) without meaning to, you just either erased my existence or said that I don’t matter. And it wouldn’t matter much, if it was just you; but it’s not, it’s everywhere, every day. And careful if you’re banking on realising that there’s a non-hetero person present: you’re bound to know several without having a clue about their orientation.
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Re: Slutwalk

Postby Senethro on Sat Jun 11, 2011 1:31 pm

Basically everything macgamer is saying here is him striving to be a nice and good person while still desperately seeking the wiggle room needed for him to hate the sin.

Theres not going to be a resolution until the pope lets him off the hook and gives him permission to act like a decent human being. Until then he is just going to muddle along and try to avoid situations where he'll have to voice or act on the beliefs that have been handed to him. He is compelled to hold them even as he knows they are repellent.
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Re: Slutwalk

Postby macgamer on Sat Jun 11, 2011 4:38 pm

G13 wrote: The reason heteronormative always has negative connotations is that it describes a society where one script is considered better than another, and where people forget that other scripts exist. I have no problem being in a minority; I Do have a problem with people leaving no room for that minority to exist.

Right that clears things up nicely. I'll try to remember that.

Firstly, nonononono, please do not mix gender identity (“biological gender”) and orientation. They are very different things. Gender identity is about what gender you know yourself to be, and orientation is who you’re attracted to. Believe me, gay men, lesbian women, bisexual folk, are all capable of knowing that they’re attracted to someone of the same gender while being entirely secure in their own sense of gender.

I was perhaps not entirely clear, my point was more about relation one's attraction to reproductive function grounded in one's gender. Absolutely, gender identity and sexuality are two different things, albeit connected.

People do not feel “out-of-kilter” because there’s anything intrinsically wrong with their orientation. People feel “out-of-kilter” because society is full of homophobic messages.

Yes I take you point, but the 'out-of-kilter' point was more related to the 'discordance' later.

This made me feel ill. Now I don’t know every person in the world, so I can’t say that it’s Never heroic. I can say that in the vast majority of cases, it is not heroic, it’s tragic. People live in a version of hell when they are unable to accept and/or live their orientation; it often causes severe mental health problems, and there are too many suicides of young LGB folk. People can spend decades being desperately, desperately unhappy, and not that good a person to be around. What could that person do with their life, what kind of a person could they be, if they were just free to love who they loved? What a waste of a life. That’s not heroic, that’s tragic.

The scenario you described is undoubtly tragic is a sense and one of the reasons why I try to be careful about not trying to cast blame and moral judgement (I can already hear JTW and Senethro laughing at that). There is a sin-sinner distinction. It is also why I do not necessarily bring up the topic of my own accord. There is a time a place for such discussions - here for example - and with people who know that I am a Catholic and not trying to be deliberately obnoxious.

There are some people who can acknowledge that there have a same-sex attraction, but chose not to live as a homosexual or adopt a gay identity. There are undoubtly good Catholics in that situation.

Yes, there are also undoutbly tragic mental health issues associated with such a route for some, but for those who from their own conscience decided that a gay identity is not for them, should anyone begrudge them that?

You talk about attraction and identity, but under identity you’re mixing two separate things: action and identity. It’s perfectly possible to have same-sex sex and not identify as gay, lesbian, bi, queer, or whatever. The identity category is more complex, I think; it has to do with one’s assessment of one’s place in the world, one’s community and political affiliations.

Your examples are one analysis of it, perhaps an 'Oscar Wilde' scenario. However as I said above, it is possible, but rare today, that some decide not to adopt the gay identity, yet are same-sex attracted and do not have homosexual sex. Attraction does not fit into neat boxes, so to develop what you said, you could have a man or woman who hold a heterosexual identity, but do have a degree of same-sex attraction, merely chosing not to act on it.

I think that society largely choses to ignore this fact. Having people in boxes is easier to cope with.

“Functional rightness or wrongness” of same-sex attraction just makes me shudder. It implies that there’s something less natural about it, less ok about it, and that it’s intrinsically “better” to be attracted to someone of the other standard sex than the same, “better” to be straight than LGB. As if those of us who are attracted to folk of the same sex/those of us who are LGB should try not to be if we could possibly help it. No. I like who I like, and no person feels more right or wrong than another – not on the grounds of gender, anyway. “Functional wrongness” of LGB desire/relationships tends to be only one toe away from “those homos are unnatural, euch... stop those homos/pity those homos/cure those homos.” No.

Right this is point where we'll simply disagree, but I think I need to explain what I mean. When I said 'functional wrongness' I wanted to differentiate attraction from practice. The practice has a for me a moral dimension, whereas attraction does not. However if one considers that sex had a biological function i.e. reproduction, then homosexual acts or indeed not vaginal intercourse of any sort, do not fit within the biological function of the sexual faculty. So working backwards to attraction, same-sex attraction is an inclination to acts which are in concordant with the biological function of the sexual faculty.

That is the justification of the views that I hold. I do not hate homosexuals either for what they do or how they feel. However I conscientiously object to the view that homosexual acts are concordant with biological function of the sexual faculty. It is very difficult to articulate my views without seemingly like a complete ogre.

People are free to form their own consciences how they wish. I'm not restricting or seeking to restrict people's freedom of action in terms of sexual practice.

You say that you agree that attraction can’t be put in boxes, and yet you seem to put it there yourself. I’m not sure whether it’s in your thinking or whether it’s a problem with the terminology: “I would not be so insensitive as to have this discussion with homosexuals...” Do you mean only homosexual people, or do you mean anyone who isn’t hetero? And if you mean only homosexual people, do you think that non-monosexual people would find it less of a potentially sensitive subject? If you mean non-hetero people, can you be more inclusive (not to mention accurate) with your terminology, because right then, (probably) without meaning to, you just either erased my existence or said that I don’t matter. And it wouldn’t matter much, if it was just you; but it’s not, it’s everywhere, every day. And careful if you’re banking on realising that there’s a non-hetero person present: you’re bound to know several without having a clue about their orientation.

The terminology is difficult. All I meant was that I'm not insensitive and so socially unaware that I would bring this topic up unless someone else had. I would probably reserve comment unless someone misrepresented the Church or was protraying it unfairly. Then I might offer an explanation, with many caveats. I've managed it in the past. The approach I tend to take is make small points and let the group make further enquiries if they were still interested.

Yes, absolutely there are probably plenty of people known to me, whose sexuality / orientation I don't know. It's none of my business, I do not make enquires: a sort of a 'don't-ask-don't-tell' policy. I've sometimes heard people say, 'Oh, so-and-say must be gay, he's "camp" etc'. Well that sort of talk is bigoted. I've known 'camp' men who are heterosexual it quite a dramatic way if you catch my meaning. I honestly don't care whether someone is homosexual or heterosexual. They are all human beings, that is what matters and loving them as a 'neighbour'.
"Progress should mean that we are always changing the world to fit the vision, instead we are always changing the vision."
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Re: Slutwalk

Postby macgamer on Sat Jun 11, 2011 4:43 pm

Senethro wrote:Basically everything macgamer is saying here is him striving to be a nice and good person while still desperately seeking the wiggle room needed for him to hate the sin.

Yes, and? What's wrong with that?

Senethro wrote:Theres not going to be a resolution until the pope lets him off the hook and gives him permission to act like a decent human being. Until then he is just going to muddle along and try to avoid situations where he'll have to voice or act on the beliefs that have been handed to him. He is compelled to hold them even as he knows they are repellent.

Well I'm sorry that I don't measure up to your standards of decency Senethro.

Yes I know that they can be 'repellent' to certain people. However I feel that much of the time people find my 'beliefs' repellent because of misunderstand or misrepresentation in certain quarters. My interventions are aiming to rectify that.
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Re: Slutwalk

Postby Frank on Sat Jun 11, 2011 5:59 pm

G13, you see the (somewhat laughable, by any metric) quandary this leaves me with?

I use crippled solely to denote something incapacitating; referring to a person as a cripple is something I've no truck with. I happen to think my way's better. Preserves the use of the word, neutralise the pejorative. The clear downside with that line of thinking is that it has no basis for efficacy, well no guarantee at least. I'm not terribly inclined to stop using crippled merely because folks use it in a disparaging capacity where it's not applicable. (Distinction between saying "I feel crippled by" and "I feel like a cripple".)

Conversely with 'gay rights', I wholly concede your point, well raised, it's something I'd not have considered. That said, it leaves an icky taste in the mouth to then ask "well what to call it?"

On the racism point, I think you misunderstand me. (Or rather, I agree, my attempt to infer a scale to oppression, divorced from its accuracy, itself sets up misunderstanding in discussion.) I don't mean to say therefore that racism is a problem, but that racism is by itself a far less broad problem. No less intense, of course, but simply less 'there'.

To put it another way: oppression of 'sexual deviants' (dire phrase, but it conveys the point) and women affects almost every society on the planet. As has been illustrated to me, if one thing could be done to improve the quality of life for everyone on the planet, it'd be education of women. Once that's instated, everything else becomes a hell of a lot easier.
Racism, however, is a much less prevalent thing, mainly because it requires the differences between races in the first place to 'start'. (Same applies to religious bigotry. It's certainly serious and a responsible component in a whole lot of atrocities, but it's still not quite as fundamental and widespread as the oppression of women.

To that extent I'd perhaps flippantly and unthinkingly say gay rights aren't as important as women's rights. Reflecting on that sort of thinking: it highlights the trouble with delineating these in the first place. Humanism, feminism, gayism (err?), they're rather interrelated by their axioms and motivations, the problems arise in that people don't group them that way. The earlier contention that femisism and chums were doing humanism a favour stands to reason if it's thought to be 'more general' than the other two. The issue then becomes that humanism is perhaps too general to seriously fuel any activism.
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Re: Slutwalk

Postby Senethro on Sat Jun 11, 2011 6:44 pm

macgamer wrote:
Senethro wrote:Basically everything macgamer is saying here is him striving to be a nice and good person while still desperately seeking the wiggle room needed for him to hate the sin.

Yes, and? What's wrong with that?

Because in this case the sin is a person.

This is going into the area of beliefs for me which I really resent because I try to hold as few of these as possible. Sexuality is an intrinsic part of a person. As much as walking or having a sense of humour is. To me it is such a fundamental behaviour that its something you are in the same sense that you can be female or you can be a person with a great many ancestors of recently African extraction.

The idea that someone who looks/is different should not be discriminated against has gained much traction. We find it easy to say that this person cannot be other than they are. Someone who acts differently though can sometimes be seen as being able to change their behaviour.

We now acknowledge it as being obviously stupid that a left-handed child should be forced to use their right hand for writing. Yes, you could split this child by saying they have a preference for left handedness yet say they should acquire the behaviour of writing with their right hand but people would think you most odd. It is clear in this case that the quality (left hand preference) should be allowed to become the behaviour.

Macgamer, when you say a person should not act as a homosexual, what I hear is this person should not be a homosexual. Its not that I'm biased against Catholicism or any explanation you have, its that I think this belief of yours is unjustifiable because the distinction does not exist. I'm slightly grateful that you don't directly contribute to discrimination but limit yourself to passive diapproval that would perhaps only promote a societal atmosphere where discrimination is more acceptable. But not very.
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Re: Slutwalk

Postby G13 on Wed Jun 15, 2011 3:13 pm

Woa, let me clear this up.

I never, ever, refer to a person as a "cripple", or a mobility disability as being "crippled", because the word has so much baggage as dehumanising. I do, however, use the word when I'm directly talking about its use in language, and above, I was using it to try to put the point that its use as a metaphor is not unconnected to its literal meaning. I'll usually use taboo words when discussing them linguistically, because it's not an actual collection of sounds or letters that has a problem, but the social meaning acquired; even so, with words that are offensive to people where I'm not a member of that community, I'd probably be more careful, as that can be interpreted as not caring/not having a clue what the word is like coming from someone out-group. In this case, I identify within the disability community, so such words from me don't have the same "othering the oppressed" effect. Still, I repeat that I wouldn't use the word when discussing anything other than its usage, because as a person with no mobility difficulties, it just isn't my place.

If Frank or anyone else reading has a mobility disability and was offended or upset by my casually throwing the word around, I apologise. I should've caught that it reads, in a general context, very differently to how I meant it. I still should've caught it, but as an explanation of why I didn't: the person I discuss disability issues most with is a person with a mobility disability who has chosen to reclaim the word, and regularly self-labels as "cripple" or "crip"; that, in conjunction with being active/reading in various online places where other with-a-mobility-disability folk do the same, means that the word has lost all shock value for me. I wouldn't use it myself outside of a linguistic discussion because it does not directly affect me, and I still detest its use as an offensive word, but there's now nothing about the sounds/letters itself that sets off any discomfort alarm bells. Hence, how I could write the above and totally blow past what it's going to sound like to nearly everybody. And, I have to say, any able-bodied folk who read the word and went !!!!!!, I have to chuckle in solidarity with my with-a-mobility-disability community folk, as that's generally exactly what they're aiming to do with reclaiming the word.

This topic is a massive divergence from the original thread, so I don't intend to continue said divergence. However, with my "disability activist" hat, I'm not capable of saying nothing when a language usage that I feel strongly about crops up. I'll say straight-up that not all disability community people are bothered by language, and feel the time should be spent on other issues. However, some of us do mind. Personally, I believe that the language we use represents how we understand the world, and in turn, expresses and spreads that understanding. I'll take one more shot at explaining my problem with the original use here.

As long as people contine to think it's their business to shout "cripple" at someone in the street, the word is clearly not far enough away from its original meaning to argue that it can be used for "incapacitating" in an unrelated sense. "Crippled" came to have the meaning of "incapacitated" because society at large believed that people they would describe as "cripple" were indeed incapacitated. The examples I gave above demonstrate that that just isn't true, so the metaphor just doesn't hold. Unfortunately, this belief is very obviously not that far from a lot of people's minds still. People with mobility disabilities report All The Time of people addressing them as if they have severe cognitive disabilities, or addressing a companion instead; of repeatedly being checked as a child for cognitive disabilities, despite no evidence for that and/or having a totally unrelated condition; of people in the street looking down at the non-standard gait or wheelchair and then looking up to examine the face (as if folk with cognitive disabilities automatically drool or something, too); people's surprise at hearing someone with a mobility disability mention going to the gym or doing sports. From the inside, and to a certain extent as an observer, it is abundantly apparent that society in general still, subconsciously or not, considers folk with a mobility disability "incapacitated", and that's inaccurate, belittling and offensive. I reject anything that operates within or props up that belief, and that includes using "crippled" to mean "incapacitated".

If you mean "incapacitating", Say "incapacitating". Disability is not your handy metaphor for bad stuff.
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Re: Slutwalk

Postby G13 on Wed Jun 15, 2011 3:43 pm

Frank,

wrt a better terminology for "gay rights". Part of the problem is that there isn't a perfect solution. I think that what's generally considered the best option is some combination of letters: with that, at least one is being clear that one's including different people. The problems with it are that some folk still don't fit under any of the usual letters and can feel excluded, the suggestion that people should/do fit under a particular letter, the slight absurdity of using an ever-increasing string of letters that's still insufficient, and the risk of forgetting a letter and upsetting folk.

The standard collection for a while seemed to be LGBT; now, the most-inclusive standard (that I'm familiar with) is LGBTQIA*. The * suggests a space for folk who feel beyond/outside those letters but would still group-associate. Personally, if I was writing in a space where it would be understood, I'd use QUILTBAG, because the slightly daft acronym making gentle fun of all these letters appeals to me, while using it indicates that it still matters to be that inclusive. I wonder if the humour is slightly privileged by my in-group identification, though, and if it'd be quite the same from someone out-group. So yeh, if I was writing in a general space, I'd use LGBTQIA* rights for the whole non-normative group, and then subdivide for specifics, like LGB rights when just refering to orientation (hm, the "A" kinda belongs in there, but is also more different than those three - I'd need to get more knowledgeable about how asexuals generally self-position. To my knowledge, not so much with LGB folk, because they can often be erased/derided there, and A folk have some different needs/focuses than LGB folk.)
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Re: Slutwalk

Postby G13 on Wed Jun 15, 2011 3:53 pm

Macgamer,

I don't think that you and I can go much further discussing sexual orientation while you remain a Catholic and I a non-Catholic; I just don't think we can get any closer than we are now, because I reject the notion of sin, certainly applied to informedly consensual sex acts, and find them being classed as sin to be both baffling and offensive. And I'm not asking you to explain it to me, because any answer that is because of religion/a holy book never made it any less baffling or offensive to me.

I don't think you're an ogre, but certain beliefs of yours are somewhat ogre-ous to me.

Seconding Senethro's points on the matter, in both the previous post and the list one.

You're still talking about "heterosexuals" and "homosexuals". Just in case I wasn't clear enough before, the best-fit common descriptive term for me would be "bisexual". Where do I fit in your binary division? You're still erasing me. (And other people, but I'm the person who's writing here right now.)
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