Here goes...

chemicalfears · Queen of Quips

Here goes...

NickyDyke85 · YouCanaeSmokeNayHashOn'Ere!

Am wrecked n dun quite unserstand the questin but yeah...

str8's can say they undetstind but they don;t, do they really have 2 go thru truble of telling mates summat that mite result in their mates cuttin contact wi them, families disoning them & a generally crap reputation n all that, face the possiblity of physical n mental abuse jus 4 been str8 do they **** & they cant know wot stress ya go thru acceptin it urself n stuff... str8 people dun go thru all that ****. its ****ing patronising when they say stuff like that n it does my head in. but not as much as ****ing fag hags who seem 2 think that cos they pointlessly follow a gay bloke like lambs 2 slaughter, go drinkin in gay bars & generally ruinin a gay nite where gayers go 2 pull by turnin up in masses n confusin things, ya know they got millions of str8 bars, **** off there n get laid like! know wot it feels like 2b gay, dumb fookin wenches, unless they;ve got laid by a woman they dunno wots its like, makes u wanna tear their bleached hair off. ****ing paris hilton clones.

yeah every1's equal like if u strip them of everything n take em rite down t bones, but still people get discriminated against cos of wot they r, every heard of heterophobic discrimination where workmates n bosses etc have harrassed str8 people 4 been str8, spread malicious gossip bout them, thrown bitchy comments in peoples ways, passed on threats, all cos of their sexuality, nah they aint, makes u wanna start up an all gay company n employ a couple of breeders put them thru **** without talkin 2 them first jus cos of the fact they like 2 **** people of opposite sex.

It's all bull**** anyway when they say they ca understand, they obviously ****in dont cos if they did they'd think the idea of havin as much decent/good/gr8 sex as possible without gettin prgnant was ****in brilliant, plus theres the thingof generally men know wot men want n women know wot women want (no1 will ever fully know that cos yeah women r awkward), if they understood they;d probably b out there tryin it, not breeding n spawning more of the ****ing breeder race

PatrickT · Forum Guru

I think what Nic has to say really holds true - perhaps it's the idea that the vast majority of gay people have had to go through what is essentially a form of mental trauma to get come to the position they're now in means there is another kind of perspective. It's not that there is some sort of innate difference between the groups but that the pressures/stress/trauma, whatever you want to call it, that the homosexual community has experienced has led to a greater understanding of others. I think that a lot of my views in accepting others come from those sorts of roots; that it's morally reprehensible to look down on and show distain for others, that the greatest good we can do for one another as a society is to show understanding.

I don't know if that's what either of you were getting at but I think that's a large part of it - people always talk about the 'artyness' of gay culture and that kind of thing, but I think that all these qualities really stem from the idea of paying attention; that success in arts really depends on an focus on detail and on observation. If you're constantly on the lookout for potential threats to your person, to your lifestyle and to your community, one begins to develop acute skills in watching and many straight people simply don't pay attention, don't care enough to take notice.

And then there's the sexual thing: that they're never going to be looking out for the same thing in a person as you are. Whilst your straight guy friends are going to be looking for a rake thin piece of ass, that's less likely going to be or gay allure. It appears to me that a lot of homosexual people model their appearance on what they themselves find attractive. If you're contstantly judging yourself on the hardest possible criteria, your own tastes, you're bound to be rather neurotic or focused on what's going on. A straight guy will never fully understand why girls like the 'bohemian' look of people like Orlando Bloom because they don't find it attractive themselves, they're not viewing him as a sexual object. They may never fully appreciate the body-dismorphia inducing attention to figure and body because they don't care if they have a beer gut as it's pretty unlikely their 6-stone girlfriend will have one; it's not an issue they'd ever thought about.

So in answer to the question Why is this post so ludicrously long?, I would conclude that these sorts of issues really do alter your view of life, do change the perspective of the 'gay eye' to make a far more unique collection of cares, desires and viewpoints.

Adam · *Censored*

I read an article the other day which was about the same questionas you're asking, and the point was why should we campaign to achieve everything that straight people have when we are clearly different. Whilist equality in terms of rights is important, we shouldn't want what straight people have, because we're not straight ourselves.

I kind of agree with it, we are different like Nic said there's things we have to go through which others don't and it does make us different. I think the way LGBT people see the world is different, but is that a bad thing? We are different. It's not like that means worse, or less important. Just different.

ChipsAndLube · Bertha, lovely Bertha, you are a lovely machine.

although if we did have equal rights and societal acceptance, we wouldn't develop as people in the same way we do now, and there wouldn't be such a dichotomy between our would view and that of the straights.

i'd rather reach that stage than maintaining our indentities as 'other'.

NickyDyke85 · YouCanaeSmokeNayHashOn'Ere!

holy hell, i know i was wrecked last nite but...

erm i still standby most of wot i said in that post, sorry bout all the swearing i had hammered tourettes last nite & i still stand by the paris hilton clones comment/s

shymike · I don't vote Tory!

i'm divided on this one. in some ways i don't think there can be a difference, because i don't feel like i'd be any different if i was straight. the way that my sexuality developed (a gradual transition from straight to bi to gay, with no definate end to one period or start to the next) makes me think that i've experienced some sort of continuity in my character. it may be that any change was just so gradual that i didn't notice it, but i don't think i'm that different now to what i was.

but on the other hand i sometimes think there must be a difference. my gaydar is finally starting to work, and i'm finding it quite confusing. sometimes i can tell someone's gay from 20 metres away, when i can't see what they're wearing or what their hair looks like or any of the more obvious stuff. there's just something about their manner sometimes, without being overtly camp etc, that just tells me. if that can happen, then logic suggests there is definately a difference between gays and straights.

chemicalfears · Queen of Quips

quote:
Originally posted by: shymike
"
but on the other hand i sometimes think there must be a difference. my gaydar is finally starting to work, and i'm finding it quite confusing.."

i know what you mean here. i never had gaydar, in fact, my friends nicknamed it 'stray-dar' in my case because i was always HIDEOUSLY wrong about the people i was attracted to in school, lol. however, it's starting to get fixed, and i'm getting better at detection, hehe.

on the being different, the man who wrote "Mayor of Castro Street" about Harvey Milk posits some ideas about behavioural differences of gay men, behaviours related to how fast the gay subculture has sprung up in the past 60 or so years.

p.s. that man is Randy Shilts.

indie_hunk · Guru of the Gay

I also agree with Nic.
Straight people can't know how it is for gay people. Like they probably don't understand why gay guys want to meet other gay guys and why some guys are quite desperate.
Also, you always hear about gay ppl complaining about some aspects of gay society (like it is too superficial, lookist, etc), which also holds true for straight society to a degree,
but for straight people, they don't have to look at the "representation" all the time because there are different niches that they can be in. I mean, they can go to differnet clubs and places
if they don't like it, but gay clubs are mostly all the same, and they probably don't get freaky guys staring at them at places like gym. They probably don't get freaky older guys staring at them
as much and asked out for casual sex as much.
But maybe this is mostly because the way gay mainstream media wants to portray us and dictates us how to act. I mean, guys that goes around having casual sex probably didn't think about doing that
when they first realized that they were gay.

indie_hunk · Guru of the Gay

Maybe we are born all the same but the fact that we are minority and that the thing we face are different from the others (ppl expect everyone to be straight) make as see the world in different eyes than straight ppl. That's my point of view. But gay or straight, there are good ppl and twats.

-- Edited by indie_hunk at 19:27, 2005-02-19

PatrickT · Forum Guru

quote:
Originally posted by: chemicalfears

"Randy Shilts posits some ideas about behavioural differences of gay men, behaviours related to how fast the gay subculture has sprung up"

I think what's interesting about this really is that if you go to the Castro NOW, go to the Mission distric of San Francisco, you'll find it's actually pretty darn hard to tell who's gay and who's straight because what's normally a subculture has become a unnoticed norm in the local area. It's not uniquely strange to be gay in San Francisco and so many of the guys (and women) there haven't developed or retained the usual affectations that we notice to mark out someone as gay. You don't have someone like Carson from Queer Eye so much because there isn't the need. Here we develop these identifying characterstics, perhaps subconsiously, do mark us apart. When being gay isn't an issue and it's not seen as an 'alternative' sexuality, those definitions fade away, and it's amazingly liberating.

-- Edited by PatrickT at 01:57, 2005-02-20