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As for me (also a gay man), I definitely do notice when I find a woman pretty… it’s just not as automatic as it is with a guy. For most of my teenage years, this was enough to convince me that I was straight :disappointed: and even for a little while after that, that I must be bi. But it was a different kind of attraction… I’d just sort of internalized the idea that if I find someone pretty, that must mean I’m into them…

(For that matter, I can also sometimes notice that a man looks very good but is nonetheless not my type :thinking:)

Well, it depends what change you’re referring to, really. It’s all rather complicated inasmuch as things happen at different times in different places, and it’s not always linear… for example, a lot of times increased visibility then leads to a backlash. There’s also a lot of unexpected bits in history that most people might not realize… like, there was a gay subculture in late 1700s Britain called the “mollies”… the French Revolution got rid of sodomy laws… in the US, the Prohibition period actually tended to benefit gay subcultures (because all bars were illegal, so gay bars were on a similar footing to the other ones)… there was a lot of progress in Germany until the Nazis cut it off… etc…

I think this is what I was trying to get at with my comment, but expressed a lot more succinctly, so thanks :slight_smile:

The thing is that discrimination can come from very innocuous-seeming places… it can come as a big surprise. And if you’re primed to expect that bigotry only comes from the most extreme sources, it’ll come as an even greater shock, and it’ll be easier to make excuses for them.

(And, well, ignorance does happen. If a person only ever has heard stereotypes about gay people, it’s not too surprising if they’ll believe them :disappointed: but then, those are also the sort of people who would be likelier to be able to learn when they meet someone from that group and realize that those stereotypes were wrong :slight_smile:)

“Should,” yes, but a lot of times people just don’t :sweat: and I think it should be possible to show such a stubborn character without normalizing them for it. Since it’s the kind of person that many people have to deal with in their lives, it’s prime fodder for narrative treatment…

(And I think there should be ways to show that a character’s wrong without the character realizing it :thinking:)

And, if you’re using mobile, and what to quote additional posts, but the quote box has filled your whole screen, you can click on the three horizontal lines in the upper right to make the quote box small again, so you can scroll to another post and quote that one :slight_smile:

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As with many things most of those human traits tend to be on a spectrum. I’m likely on a slightly different position along it then you.

I’d have assumed bisexuality, then again I was educated with the Kinsey scale, both at school and by mom, and that thing assumes that some form of bisexuality may be the default for most humans. I like to think that’s true personally.

Which is why we need to always remain much more vigilant than our straight neighbours, sadly enough. On the other hand I might never have gotten into or even interested in activism and politics, most of my family both maintain the frankly foolish notion that they need not be interested in politics, that it isn’t for people like them, even that politics is no place for “decent”, hardworking folks, etc, etc…

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Yep :slight_smile: everyone’s different and it’s fun to learn more about the diversity :smile:

On my part, it just took me a while to figure out that there was a difference between “she’s pretty! good for her! :smile:” and “OMG he is so gorgeous, I wish I had the guts to say hi :flushed:”

(And yeah, I tend to think a lot of people [maybe most?] are more bisexual than they think, but not everybody…)

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Same tbh. I spent half of high school flip flopping between identifying as pansexual and ace since I couldn’t tell the difference between finding a person aesthetically or sexuality attractive. I’m also an art person so I think that was why I was so confused all the time? I just think everyone is pretty and idk if it’s because of the area I live in or what but somehow I’ve met a lot more aesthetically pleasing women and nb people than men?

Tbh I think it wasn’t until I started playing games with romance options (Dragon Age at first then my friend got me into CoG) that I realized I couldn’t really see myself dating a girl. Then like last year I realized I had feelings for a guy I was sorta friends with and had the OH I’M GAY moment

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I feel like social expectations might play a part in this :thinking: there’s sort of that expectation that women are supposed to be pretty all the time, and the expectation that if a man takes an interest in his appearance, he must be gay (which is neither necessarily true, nor is it actually a bad thing, but there’s society for you :unamused:).
(I’m not sure how this would apply to nonbinary people, since society doesn’t really acknowledge them in the first place :disappointed_relieved:)

Or it might just be personal aesthetic taste :thinking:

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Yeah that’s definitely possible

I’ve also been wondering how/if compulsory heterosexuality affects me when I’m trans? There have been a few instances where I’ve consciously tried to be attracted to women though that’s more recent though I don’t actually know why I did that? It’s also hard to tell if I really have been mistaking aesthetic attraction for sexual attraction or if I’ve tried to force myself to sexually attractive all along? Idk attraction is just weird and complicated

Also I have this little theory that there are two guys I know who are just sucking up every other guys’ beauty. I’ve had both as classmates (not at the same time, I’d probably explode if that happened) and whenever either of them talk to me, my brain just shuts down. It doesn’t help that my friend is friends is friends with one of them so sometimes he stops by to talk between classes or during breaks :flushed:

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Yeah take The Sopranos as an example. The show realistically depicts what happens when a mobster is discovered to be gay - he is ostracised and eventually beaten to death for it, but you as the viewer understand that the main characters are all sociopathic murderers and criminals and there’s nothing glorifying about it.

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If you’re clever, feared and well-connected enough it may also not matter anymore, actually more than a few of our most feared criminals of the early 20th century have been rumoured to be gay (or even just bi), though of course in a fair few cases this may have been nothing more then slander, but over here at least it has seldom been instrumental to their eventual downfall. Then again the US is a different culture.

Just one more reason why I liked and still like Vendetta so much, as chance to be a totally badass gay mob boss (eventually).

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…Sorry but just thought of another example that expands on this, take the film the boy in the striped pyjamas, it does this too, but also shows how hypocritical this is.(ddon’t want to say more to spoil it though) One of the reasons I love that film, takes a topic that’s be done to death and yet has a unique narrative(that I know of anyhoo).

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With the caveat that I can’t speak from personal experience, I’ve definitely heard a few trans people saying similar things… I’ve heard there’s also a lot of cases where trans people are treated as if they’re not really trans enough if they’re not straight, and people sort of conceptualizing transness as if it were “gay, but more so” and therefore not understanding that trans people have a variety of sexual orientations, just like cis people. In another direction, I’ve also heard cases where trans men were thought to be lesbians, or even thought themselves to be lesbians, regardless of whom they’re attracted to, just because of stereotypes.

I think I’ve known guys like that too :flushed:

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What always surprises me, is the degree of acceptability that homosexuality found in the Classical Ancient World (especially in Greece, but Rome was also one of the best historical periods in that regard, even if being “active” was seen at a much better life than being “passive” - sorry guys, I am not completely sure about the right words for this, I apologize in advance if I am using incorrect or relatively offensive expressions). I mean, the degree of retrogress that the Late Classical Age (especially due to the Christianity) and then the Middle Age represented is astonishing.

Indeed. I am speaking for a mostly external perspective on this matters, so feel free to kick me out of the thread, but I think that if we weren’t conditioned by society, culture and education, bisexuality would be the majority. Not to say that anything other than bisexuality is abnormal, far from it, just saying that it would probably be the most standard, default or common orientation.

I think I would almost certainly be bisexual if it wasn’t for growing up in our society. I guess one doesn’t need to be bigoted in order to unconsciously assimilate the “socially correct stance” and adapt, to the point of having never felt sexual attraction for the same sex, despite recognizing beauty in it. I honestly don’t know. I guess we will never know, at least for some more generations, because “alternative” sexual orientations will probably not stop being discriminated for some time.

There is always that movie from Tom Hardy (amazing actor), where he plays British twin mobsters, one of them gay. It is inspired in a true story as it seems, which is pretty surprising. I guess when one is crazy enough to kill everyone in the room if they look at him the wrong way, most people are willing to let anything slip, even if things that they would gladly condemn otherwise.

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Well the top-level criminals always stand out and apart from society, so they do get to make their own rules to a certain extent. The danger I think is being found out when you still have homophobic crime lords above you in the organisation.
In addition to that fact successful criminals tend to be very rich and rich people have always had an easier time getting away with being gay.

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Well, I think it’s mainly due to sexism, really, in both directions. In Greece, women were seen as inferior, and thus a truly fulfilling relationship could only be had with another man. Meanwhile, to the ancient Hebrews, sex with another man was basically treating him like a woman, so it was obviously wrong. :roll_eyes:

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As far as I’m concerned, the terminology is fine when talking about ancient Greek and Roman relationships, because that’s the way they conceptualized them. It would only be offensive if someone were to act as if those roles applied to all gay relationships in general. (Which sometimes happens… though nowadays it’s more often someone acting like there always has to be someone who’s “the man” in the relationship and someone who’s “the woman.”) But that is the way the Greeks and Romans saw it… which just goes to show that there are plenty of ways for societies to exhibit discrimination without it manifesting in exactly the same way it does in ours.

I would like to suggest, as regards acceptability in historic times, and retrogression, that we really shouldn’t consider discrimination against homosexuality to be the default situation. It seems to have developed in a rather particular cultural context, and then spread, and intensified. It has occurred in some other contexts… for example, at least part of the Aztecs (though some Aztec-ruled areas seem to have been very pro-homosexuality)… but it’s more common for societies to have been okay with it. We do see a lot of cases where people, or at least heirs, are expected to reproduce, to varying degrees… but not always that, either.

And a lot of the worst stuff came toward the end of the Middle Ages, or more in the Renaissance or “Enlightenment.” Before then, it tended to be considered a church matter, meaning that the penalty would be more a matter of the priest giving a penance after confession, while the secular authorities would leave it alone. (History being big, there are exceptions to this.) But later on, it got into more law codes, resulting in much more oppression once it was actually illegal :cold_sweat:

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Thank you, yes!!! So many people really do NOT think like that and made me feel strange about it. Though, to be honest, it turns out part of that is because I’m demisexual, but I didn’t realize that for the longest time, because I had no concept of that even being a thing. I was just called weird or prudish for not equating physical attraction with wanting to have sex with someone. And somehow, because I’m not trying to get into everyone’s pants if I don’t even know them, I’M the weird one. Shrug! :confused:

But yeah, back to the broader topic, I remember doing that whole “you’re stranded at sea and you can only take so many people on your life raft and you can chose from a doctor, teacher, scientist, politician, etc.” thought exercise freshman year in high school. And obviously everyone is like, yes, please, let’s rescue the doctor, then you get the a second set of information about the group and the doctor was a gay man and all the dudes in the group were like, “Whelp, throw him overboard, then.” Like, please broflake, thinking so highly of yourself and your fragile masculinity. As if anyone would be thinking about sex at all in a dire survival situation OR that they would want YOUR prejudiced sorry self. So immature! But it gave me insight into why people might vote against their own interests at an early age, LOL.

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Well, there’s a prime example where making a bigoted choice would result in palpable harm to oneself :unamused:

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Almost verbatim dudebro justification: “B-b-but what if he triiiiieeees to kiiiiiiss meeeeee!?” :sob:

Those fools! Yeah, there was no reasoning with them on this. I was shocked and infuriated at the time, but then, also still young and naive. Now I’m still infuriated, but sadly not shocked. :sweat_smile:

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I agree with them tbh. I mean you want to try and survive with a guy that spent at least 6 years in front of a book and have never been outside? I’d rather take the scientist, since its a broad term you can assume they probably have some knowledge of biology and can at least tell edible plants apart from poisonous plants lul this is how people should think. Who cares if someone is gay or whatever. The only important thing is who they are as a person. An asshole person will still be an asshole whether they’re straight or anything else

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The problem isn’t that they decided to let the doctor die, the problem is that they wanted the doctor to live, but once they realized he was gay, then they wanted him off the boat

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Yeah, I remember an Adam Sandler movie not so long ago (guilty pleasure, the movies of that guy) “I pronounce you Chuck and Larry”, where there was a scene where the gay characters kinda discuss who of those two hetero-pretending-to-be-gay guys was the “man” and “woman” in bed. And I was laughing my ass off with the scene (well, the whole movie, to be honest) and I suddenly realized that the whole scene was probably pretty offensive to many gays because it generalizes sexual relationships and because it links preference for certain sexual roles with conceptions radicated in machismo.

Which leads me to the topic, do you feel that comedies (which obviously work with stereotypes most of the time) are damaging to LGBTQ+'s fight for non-discriminatory behaviour and equalty of human rights?

That is one of those comments that I have heard people who don’t go around discriminating LGBTQ say, and it shows a deep misunderstanding about gays and a de facto and possibly unconscious discrimination. Come on, why should a person need to react differently to any other situation where someone to whom you don’t feel attraction tries to kiss you? For christ sake, how can people be that insecure? And its not like gays feel attraction towards every guy they see, just like the rest of the people don’t. So yeah, that usual comment does show that there is still a huge way to go until people realize that gays, lesbians, bisexuals, etc are like any other person out there.

By the way (and I am in no way trying to start a fight here, because I know there is some degree of debate on the issue) but there is a specific reason for not putting “LGBTQ+” or “LGBTQIA” instead of “LGBTQ” in the thread title? And if it was deliberate, does it result from the fact that there are other ace\aro threads in the forum, or is it a political statement? I am honestly just asking. :slight_smile:

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