Sexuality Thread

[Roostophe]

I didn't even know NPH was gay...

[Dan_Dare]

[Ashley]

I didn't even know NPH was gay...

 

Amusingly someone here (can't remember who...) had an avatar of NPH (well, Barney) and was spouting some homophobic nonsense. Was great pointing out the irony.

 

Trivia: he's dating the guy who plays Scooter, Lily's ex from high school.

[chairdriver]

Feels really flawed, since neither John Barrowman or NPH have actually done anything worthwhile.

 

At least Ian McKellen is a good actor.

 

"You homo-sapiens and your polls"

 

I lol'ed.

[Ashley]

Feels really flawed, since neither John Barrowman or NPH have actually done anything worthwhile.

 

At least Ian McKellen is a good actor.

 

 

Depends how you interpret the question, and what audience to. John Barrowman and NPH have certainly put out different representations of homosexuality and open up homosexuality to audiences. They're having successful careers after coming out and...what's that saying. Exposure is something?

 

Ian McKellen is a good actor indeed

 

But its just a silly little internet poll that only really lit a fire when NPH made a joking tweet. At least it mended a rift between NPH and Kevin Smith that had been going on for years

[soag]

Didnt know he was gay so this was a shock to me as well :/

[Coolness Bears]

[Fresh]

I'm starting to get slightly annoyed at the gay community around me. It seems all they are interested in is just a no strings fumble. I start to wonder where the genuinely sweet fellas are sometimes. Hummmmmm.

[chairdriver]

I'm starting to get slightly annoyed at the gay community around me. It seems all they are interested in is just a no strings fumble. I start to wonder where the genuinely sweet fellas are sometimes. Hummmmmm.

 

You're changeling the same emotion I get when I listen to this song:

 

[Paj!]

You're changeling

 

?

[Dannyboy-the-Dane]

I did know Neil Patrick Harris was gay, but I had no idea Ian McKellen was as well.

[ReZourceman]

Oh man, Sir Ian McKellen loves the cock.

[Dannyboy-the-Dane]

Oh man, Sir Ian McKellen loves the cock.

All old, white-bearded wizards do ...

 

[chairdriver]

Tonight was the first Queer Studies Circle of this term. It sounds lame/shite, but it's actually the most enlightening thing I've ever experienced in my life. It's run by James, one of my best friends at Oxford, who's a 4th year English grad, who is the most intelligent person I've ever met in my life. (so many who's!!)

 

Tonight's subject was "Genderqueer". I'm quoting Juliette Lewis. "You blew my mind, my friend".

 

Everyone there had so much to say. And everyone was there because they had so much to say. Genuinely the most stimulating conversation/discourse I've ever had in my life. It lasted 2 hours, but it felt like it could have lasted 4 hours more.

 

This girl who has obviously had face reconstruction surgery and who I was physically repulsed by at first (I made the conscious decision not to sit next to her - which I feel so bad about now), told us that she's had surgery 9 times on her face, because she was born with her jaw attached wrongly to the rest of her face (I can't remember the exact way she phrased it), and as she grew older it would cut through her wind-pipe. And after her last surgery, which totally changed her face, she said that she "was unwoven, unravelled", and ever since she's seen herself as neither male nor female. At the end of it all, she said "I don't want to be touched. All my life I've been touched by doctors and nurses. I just want to be loved, by someone that can look at me, and accept that I'm not either sex." Sounds clichedly movie-script when I write it down, but it was actually the most impassioned thing I've ever heard. I was actually holding back tears.

 

To actually hear someone's story makes it so much more real.

 

Before, I cared so little for the T part of LGBT. I thought it has no bearing on my life, but I've literally seen and heard too many truths tonight. It made me reanalyse why I consider myself gay. Do I label myself gay because I'm attracted to the male body, or because I'm attracted to the masculine end of the gender spectrum, or for another reason?

 

Would I be attracted to a female to male transexual? Would I be attracted to a genderless person in a male body?

 

 

 

It's so easy if you don't have any experience of trans to view trans people as freaks. And I'm sure everyone who reads this will quickly push the ugly thought of someone who is "unnatural" from their minds, and hope they never have to engage with someone "like that" in their lives. And I know people on this forum are transphobic, because I've had a 3 page argument with someone on this very same thread. And I know people will read this, and not comment, because they think I'm a weird radical queer activist or something.

 

Now everytime anyone says anything transphobic, I'll be like:

 

 

 

 

Just don't you dare tell a trans person that gender is binary. Don't you dare think a trans person is a freak. You do not have the justification or authority to. You've lived your life not ever having questioned anything about your identity. You've never had reason to question society's attitude towards anything. You've never had to declare anything about yourself, because there's a handy presupposition that you're "normal".

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm just crying blood on too many levels.

[MoogleViper]

Just don't you dare tell a trans person that gender is binary. Don't you dare think a trans person is a freak. You do not have the justification or authority to. You've lived your life not ever having questioned anything about your identity. You've never had reason to question society's attitude towards anything. You've never had to declare anything about yourself, because there's a handy presupposition that you're "normal".

 

Why am I not allowed to think that gender is either male or female? Why are they automatically "right" and me "wrong"? Because they're in the minority? Because they're "different"? Because they've been persecuted?

[Paj!]

Well, surely some people will mentally feel they are neither gender, or biologically in some cases. In that case wouldn't you understand if they didn't like you coming along and being annoyed that they didn't choose one or the other?

 

Not sure if that is even the right response to what you said.

[ReZourceman]

Just don't you dare tell a trans person that gender is binary. Don't you dare think a trans person is a freak. You do not have the justification or authority to. You've lived your life not ever having questioned anything about your identity. You've never had reason to question society's attitude towards anything. You've never had to declare anything about yourself, because there's a handy presupposition that you're "normal".

 

Amen brother!

 

 

I'm just crying blood on too many levels.

 

[Daft]

Gender is certainly not a binary. I'm not sure where the root of that idea is from, I'll just blame Judeo-Christian tradition, but in many places this isn't the case. In Kerala, South India, for example there are viewed three distinct sexes. The very LGBT term shows that there are at least four distinctions in the West - it starts to become clear the sexuality is socially respondent.

 

Foucault says sex became a political tool to define normalcy which makes a massive amount of sense when you look at the the extreme heteronormativity of (capitalist?) society.

 

Queer Theory is just awesomely interesting. I get to study it properly next year.

 

 

I still hate Lady Gaga. She can bleed all she wants.

Edited January 24, 2010 by Daft
Lady Gaga rage.

[Paj!]

 

Yeah, you didn't just steal that from me... :wink:

[chairdriver]

Why am I not allowed to think that gender is either male or female?

You're allowed to think what you want.

Why are they automatically "right" and me "wrong"?

They aren't automatically right; they've spent the majority of their lives thinking about it and questioning their own identity, where you obviously haven't.

 

---

 

Last night was a revolutionary moment in my life. Before I went in, I was really skeptical about the whole matter, and would have preferred the topic was something else. Afterwards, it feels I've seen avenues of thought I've never known how to think before.

 

I don't identity as trans, and I don't think I ever will, but I'm beginning to think about my gender outside of the gender that my body ties me to. I'm biologically male, but I'm unsure of the degree to which I feel male - definitely not to the degree that I have to ever assert any masculinity.

 

It sort of feels to me that it was coincidental that I was born with a penis. While my male sex has influenced my life - for example I wear "male" clothing, mostly because I feel uncomfortable being confrontational all the time, which is what doing things outside of societies constructed boundaries is seen as, confrontational - it feels like I'd be a very similar person if I had been born with a vagina.

 

I don't think the same can be said for alot of my straight guy friends/acquaintances*, who put on the "lad" persona, and do things in the name of "banter". But maybe they only do that as a tool to attract girls?

 

The immediate flow of thought from that would be that maybe I don't flaunt any masculinity in order to attract other men?

But then, I've never consciously done anything to attract men, I've always felt that I'm the one to be attracted, which I suppose is a traditionally masculine attribute (but why? Why can't a woman propagate a sexual encounter) [i've just realised I've again ended up talking in binaries - social conditioning is so powerful, and hard to escape from!]. Maybe its a reflection of the fact that I don't have confidence in my own image and ability to attract another man?

 

 

BASICALLY, I feel society's dictation of what men and women are, past a penis and vagina, doesn't harmonise with my experience of gender.

 

 

 

*Coming to uni has been a very interesting experience, because I've kinda been forced to make friends situationally with people I wouldn't usually associate with [namely rugby lads]. My college, in particular, is extremely cliquey, and because I'm really good friends with one girl, I've kinda been drafted into her clique, and end up hanging around with them alot.

[MoogleViper]

long post

 

But the way I see it is, your gender is your body, that's it. That doesn't dictate how you are, how you think. Sure it's had a large influence on you, of course it has. But so have many other thinks, such as the fact that I'm from Derbyshire and you're from Edinburgh. But that doesn't mean that I can't be like people from Edinburgh, or that I have to act a certain way. I just happened to have been born in Derbyshire, and experienced a Derbyshire life, just like I've been born male, and experienced a male life. You wouldn't say that I'm and Edinburgh person born in a Derbyshire person's body.

 

In fact maybe race is a better example. There's stereotypes of black/white people, but people don't have to act like that. And these little chavvy "gangstas" that you see you wouldn't say they were a black person born inside a white persons body. Or vice versa.

[chairdriver]

But the way I see it is, your gender is your body, that's it.

 

No, your sex is your body. Sex and gender are subtly different.

 

That doesn't dictate how you are, how you think. Sure it's had a large influence on you, of course it has. But so have many other thinks, such as the fact that I'm from Derbyshire and you're from Edinburgh. But that doesn't mean that I can't be like people from Edinburgh, or that I have to act a certain way. I just happened to have been born in Derbyshire, and experienced a Derbyshire life, just like I've been born male, and experienced a male life. You wouldn't say that I'm and Edinburgh person born in a Derbyshire person's body.

 

I don't really see what you're getting at here, apart from that situation is instrumental to a person's outlook on life? Would you agree that you might have a different outlook on life to someone whose grown up in the exact same situation as you, but identified as trans, or genderqueer?

 

Anyway, I grew up all over the place (my dad's in the army), so the surface level of your point doesn't hold.

 

In fact maybe race is a better example. There's stereotypes of black/white people, but people don't have to act like that. And these little chavvy "gangstas" that you see you wouldn't say they were a black person born inside a white persons body. Or vice versa.

 

I don't have time to respond to this, so as it stands, you have a point [for the actual record, you don't].

[Gizmo]

Lol.

 

so as it stands, you have a point [for the actual record, you don't].

 

You're an idiot.

[The fish]

But the way I see it is, your gender is your body, that's it.

 

I think you'll find you mean sex is what you're born with, whilst gender is what you personally identify with.

[MoogleViper]

No, your sex is your body. Sex and gender are subtly different.

 

As you've probably worked out, I disagree.

 

Anyway, I grew up all over the place (my dad's in the army), so the surface level of your point doesn't hold.

 

So maybe it wasn't the best example, but that's all it was, an example.

 

I don't really see what you're getting at here, apart from that situation is instrumental to a person's outlook on life? Would you agree that you might have a different outlook on life to someone whose grown up in the exact same situation as you, but identified as trans, or genderqueer?

 

I'm saying that who a person is (talking about mind and personality) doesn't have a gender. Gender is just their body. Therefore you can't be a woman in a man's body.

 

I think you'll find you mean sex is what you're born with, whilst gender is what you personally identify with.

 

No I don't.