http://www.collegehumor.com/video/6846855/gay-men-will-marry-your-girlfriends
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
Sunday, November 11, 2012
Found another book I want.
Oddly Normal: One Family's Struggle to Help Their Teenage Son Come to Terms with His Sexuality.
As titles go, it's a bit long, but as hooks go, this book has got a huge one: The true story of how journalist John Schwartz got a call telling him his son was in the hospital after a failed suicide attempt. Read about it here.
Politics
My friends are up in a hullabaloo about Obama getting re-elected. I'm just happy Mitt isn't around to work to keep me a second-class citizen. To me, it is personal. I can't keep my politics separate from my friendships, because presidential elections mean the difference between a president who will re-enact DOMA (it's not off the books, just not apparently being enforced) and fight to keep my rights from me, vs. a president who will work to give me equality.
In other political news and reblogged news articles:
The Republicans don't want me. They want everyone else, but not me.
The Democratic party, however, does.
Bob Kerrey, running for Senate, supports gay marriage. (Unfortunately, he lost.)
I realize it might have been more productive to have reposted this earlier. Can I blame my workload?
In other political news and reblogged news articles:
The Republicans don't want me. They want everyone else, but not me.
The Democratic party, however, does.
Bob Kerrey, running for Senate, supports gay marriage. (Unfortunately, he lost.)
I realize it might have been more productive to have reposted this earlier. Can I blame my workload?
More newspaper.
- An appeals court in New York says calling someone gay is not slander, because it is not defamatory. I always thought slander depended on the information being untrue. There's me told.
- Gaydar is apparently totally real, with about 60% accuracy, and dependent on the relationship between a person's facial features.
- The company Replacements Limited came out for gay marriage, to the loss of several customers. C'mon, queer allies, anti-boycott!
- More notes on Chick Fil'A.
Choices.
One of the prominent previous proponents of 'reparative therapy' retracts his claims, and admits they were based on a biased study. The article also cites claims that the therapy is harmful and contributes to depressive thoughts and actions. Even Alan Chambers, the president of Exodus, a Christian therapy group for gays, is speaking more liberally about whether being gay can be changed. Then again, those who claim to have been 'fixed' by reparative therapy complain that they have indeed been changed
and that if they had known these therapies were possible, that they
might have avoided said depressive thoughts and actions, and speak out
against the recent ban of these therapies in California.
Interesting. As a queer woman myself, I try not to judge people on their sexuality. If a person truly does not feel like being gay is part of who they are, I try to accept that. If for them, it is a choice, I try to accept that, too. I just worry that talking about change can cause harm to people who could live a happy, fulfilling life accepting their sexuality and acting on it, because they believe it is sin and that if there's a possibility they could change, they should act on it.
I've read that religious faith is a choice. I immediately rejected the idea, because if I could choose to simply believe, it would make life so much easier, rather than all these pesky questions and doubts. Then I started wondering.
I think I do choose my faith, but that it's a choice where the unconscious mind has to be making the same choice as the conscious mind. You can force yourself to choose black socks instead of white, healthy food instead of candy, a donation to charity instead of a trip to Disney World. You can't force yourself to choose faith.
If being gay is indeed a choice, it's that kind of choice. If your subconscious doesn't want to change, you can't. If it does, maybe you can. It would explain a lot.
Who has the right to tell someone their subconscious needs to be behaving differently?
Nobody in their right mind would choose to be gay on the surface. All that hate? Limiting your options like that? Risking harm and even death? No way. But I wouldn't want to change, not now, even if I could wipe the memories of everyone around me to save me the embarrassment of coming out in reverse. I like the idea of dating a woman, being with a woman. You know how they say men are from Mars, and women are from Venus? How often people talk about not understanding the opposite sex?
I read about a study, and don't ask me to produce the article, I don't know where I left it, that women and men experience attraction vastly differently. The study involved watching the area of a person's brain that responded to attraction at the same time as showing the subject pictures and asking them to rate them attractive or not, or possibly somewhere in between. If a man was attracted to a photo, he was attracted to it. His brain and answers lined up. Women's did not. I also read, from a not so credible source, sixbillionsecrets.com, that all girls are bisexual. I know for me, and it may be because I'm a woman, or just because I'm odd, sexuality is highly linked to emotion. Nine times out of ten, I have to know someone at least a little to be attracted to them. I can walk through a mall and pick out pretty girls, but I can't walk through a mall and pick out even one person I'd sleep with, even if the usual social cues and moral standards were thrown out. So I like the idea of being with a woman, because a woman would, likely, understand me better, understand how I react, understand why I react, and touch me accordingly, because she feels it herself. A man may the sweetest, kindest, most understanding man in the world, but because he doesn't experience attraction as a woman, he can't instinctively respond to mine. Obviously, there are plenty of exceptions; I am talking generally.
So, there is actually a reason to choose to be gay. Allow me to reiterate. Perhaps one or two people on Earth today are crazy enough to take a reason like that as good enough to choose to be gay despite all the reasons I mentioned above to choose to be straight. One or two would pick being in constant danger of being treated as a pervert, a sinner, a weirdo, someone who doesn't need or deserve friends or basic human kindness, or even life, over the idea of having a relationship with an unprecedented level of mutual understanding. Especially considering how many straight couples get along just fine, and how many gay couples break up anyway--the two sets are equally volatile. The pros and cons don't balance. There is no basis for a conscious choice.
There is, however, just possibly, enough for an unconscious choice, especially for a woman.
But if you can't tell me to change my faith, you can't tell me to change my sexuality.
Interesting. As a queer woman myself, I try not to judge people on their sexuality. If a person truly does not feel like being gay is part of who they are, I try to accept that. If for them, it is a choice, I try to accept that, too. I just worry that talking about change can cause harm to people who could live a happy, fulfilling life accepting their sexuality and acting on it, because they believe it is sin and that if there's a possibility they could change, they should act on it.
I've read that religious faith is a choice. I immediately rejected the idea, because if I could choose to simply believe, it would make life so much easier, rather than all these pesky questions and doubts. Then I started wondering.
I think I do choose my faith, but that it's a choice where the unconscious mind has to be making the same choice as the conscious mind. You can force yourself to choose black socks instead of white, healthy food instead of candy, a donation to charity instead of a trip to Disney World. You can't force yourself to choose faith.
If being gay is indeed a choice, it's that kind of choice. If your subconscious doesn't want to change, you can't. If it does, maybe you can. It would explain a lot.
Who has the right to tell someone their subconscious needs to be behaving differently?
Nobody in their right mind would choose to be gay on the surface. All that hate? Limiting your options like that? Risking harm and even death? No way. But I wouldn't want to change, not now, even if I could wipe the memories of everyone around me to save me the embarrassment of coming out in reverse. I like the idea of dating a woman, being with a woman. You know how they say men are from Mars, and women are from Venus? How often people talk about not understanding the opposite sex?
I read about a study, and don't ask me to produce the article, I don't know where I left it, that women and men experience attraction vastly differently. The study involved watching the area of a person's brain that responded to attraction at the same time as showing the subject pictures and asking them to rate them attractive or not, or possibly somewhere in between. If a man was attracted to a photo, he was attracted to it. His brain and answers lined up. Women's did not. I also read, from a not so credible source, sixbillionsecrets.com, that all girls are bisexual. I know for me, and it may be because I'm a woman, or just because I'm odd, sexuality is highly linked to emotion. Nine times out of ten, I have to know someone at least a little to be attracted to them. I can walk through a mall and pick out pretty girls, but I can't walk through a mall and pick out even one person I'd sleep with, even if the usual social cues and moral standards were thrown out. So I like the idea of being with a woman, because a woman would, likely, understand me better, understand how I react, understand why I react, and touch me accordingly, because she feels it herself. A man may the sweetest, kindest, most understanding man in the world, but because he doesn't experience attraction as a woman, he can't instinctively respond to mine. Obviously, there are plenty of exceptions; I am talking generally.
So, there is actually a reason to choose to be gay. Allow me to reiterate. Perhaps one or two people on Earth today are crazy enough to take a reason like that as good enough to choose to be gay despite all the reasons I mentioned above to choose to be straight. One or two would pick being in constant danger of being treated as a pervert, a sinner, a weirdo, someone who doesn't need or deserve friends or basic human kindness, or even life, over the idea of having a relationship with an unprecedented level of mutual understanding. Especially considering how many straight couples get along just fine, and how many gay couples break up anyway--the two sets are equally volatile. The pros and cons don't balance. There is no basis for a conscious choice.
There is, however, just possibly, enough for an unconscious choice, especially for a woman.
But if you can't tell me to change my faith, you can't tell me to change my sexuality.
Saturday, November 10, 2012
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