Oh, my. Unless your debating tactics improve in quality--specifically, unless you become capable of addressing issues, rather than attacking others for addressing them--you and I are so very, very done talking.
I don't see what I did was very wrong, and the majority makes it look like it was, so by democratic means it was and I respect that. I;m not here to infringe that tendency, and there's no majority capable of making me look like I am.
I posted to this effect only without obvious spoilers. after I watched that ep. I was really quite annoyed at the quantity of people on online forums that were saying that they weren't ever gonna watch ever again because of the revelation. You know what...and excuse my language....fuck them! Okay... so many of the naysayers were saying that it came out of a clear blue sky, and I'll be the first to admit I had my blinkers on. But in narrative context, I can completely swallow it. Flint gay? Yeah, I can completely swallow that. Why wouldn't I? I'd been given no reason to think otherwise.
Just from the way you fans of the show are ogling over the characters, I can tell this is another True Blood/ walking dead/ Rome equivalent, hence I'd never watch.... But it sounds to me like the makers of the show were actually just trying to be historically correct. Pirates did get intimate with each other. Living on an all male ship...no porn.... What are you gonna do? Look up the word matelotage. It actually went beyond physical intimacy.
@123456789 Yeah, I read about that pirates had some sort of system that was pretty much like a wedding between one another. If one died, or got lamed, the other would get compensated and everything. Unlike the non-consensual part of prison rape, this was the same thing. No one else around, bond with someone who was.
@A.M.P. I watched the better part of the episode in question yesterday on Starz. Again, it is the only episode I have ever watched. I thought it was very tastefully done. I thought it was respectful of the audience and I thought it did a very good job of interpreting his feelings and his POV in the flash-backed memories that are simply the loving and close moments that two people who love one another share and that comprise the true nature and core of any relationship. I thought it did a good job of pointing out that being gay is not about a never-ending quest to find a bum-dock for your cock. It's not about what you fuck. It's about who you love and how you relate to the world (and it relates to you) when it canalizes this information. The trogs who posted shitty comments are unsalvageable. They are the reactionary idiots who know not what spews forth from their gullet, for it spews at the behest of their masters. They are but puppets, marionettes. If not even this thoughtful portrayal can evince humanity from them, it is because there is none to evince.
I highlighted that in your post because I just wanted to say - just because your gay friends do not talk about gay pride and gay rights or their struggle as gay people, the discrimination they experience, might not necessarily be because they're "comfortable" with "it" - in this context, I assume "it" to mean the "situation in general in your country and/or the world". I almost never talk about the discrimination I experience as a British Chinese when I lived in the UK, nor now when I live in the Czech Republic to one of the locals of the country. I don't talk about how the Brits have been racist to myself, to my sister, to my parents in front of my English friends - the once or twice when I have, I've been shot down and dismissed, by friends who are otherwise educated and who love me and who do not discriminate against me or my family themselves. Just two days ago when I had dinner with some friends, we spoke about the discrimination we have all experienced in contact with some Brits and Americans - and the only reason why we were able to have such an open conversation and yes, vent a little, is because there were no purely English or purely American person in the house. (I'm British Chinese, as mentioned, my husband's fully Czech, our guests were an Indian who attended British school studying in Prague, and her partner who's half-Czech and half-American, raised in Florida) I understand racial issues are different to gender issues, however it is my experience that it is extremely difficult to talk about discrimination with someone who belong to the group committing the offense. I can complain about Czechs being racist to a British person. And I can complain about a Brit being racist to a Czech. But I can never complain about a Czech being racist to a Czech, nor complain about a Brit to a Brit. I'm just guessing here, but there's a chance that some of your gay friends might be keeping quiet precisely because you seem to see no point in the discussion anymore, because they feel they already know how you'll react, and that is dismissively. Not because you personally are prejudiced - you are not - but likewise you do not sympathise with the ongoing struggle that does exist. When @BayView said: Given the flow of the conversation in this thread, it's true the tone was perhaps uncalled for, but I genuinely feel she's said something quite insightful here. Because there's been too many occasions when I've seen my English friends dismiss the existence of racism when I've mentioned it - and I can easily believe that is also the case for gender issues. Because the issue does not affect you personally, and because you personally are not prejudiced, therefore the discussion should disappear and there's no problem. But the truth is, this kind of attitude is also part of the discriminatory problem. Think of it this way - who has the power to really change things and end discrimination? The power belongs to the majority, to the norm. And if people - open, enlightened people like you who are not prejudiced refuse to see that there's still an issue that needs fighting simply because you yourself are enlightened, then who is left to rid the world of its still-existing prejudice? Because then we're left with the unenlightened majority, and the minority who are still clamouring to be heard. Discrimination is so prevalent because it's so easy to justify, and it's easy to dismiss. It's easy to say the prolem doesn't exist just because you're not the offender nor the victim. But as an individual who is neither a victim nor someone who is prejudiced, you are in the perfect position to actually help minorities and push for further change. The sad thing is people in these perfect positions often don't see the problem, like yourself, simply because you don't personally have a problem with the victims in question - and so? Nothing changes. Edited to add as a side tangent: an interesting discovery we made during our conversation about racism - the English friends we all have who are particularly international and open-minded all happen to have some sort of international exposure from a young age. They tend to be half or quarter-something-other-than-English. It's rare to find someone who can actually be critical about their country.
Yeah, that's sadly the way some people view it and a bit of a joke. I've said it before, but my MC at the moment is gay. It was never my intention. I started writing the character talking about her mother and dead sister, and eventually it just turned out she was a bit of a tom-boy and liked girls. I'm a hetero guy. There was no 'reason' for it. It's not pandering to anyone. In fact, I tend to skim over it because it's no big deal. It's a character trait. But I guess that's how I view sexuality in life. I don't care if you're attracted to men or women or both or neither. I also don't care what beer you like, unless you want me to go to the bar and order. So it's a shame people react the way they do to a gay (or bi) male character, especially in the context of a story that supports their inclusion. I'm pretty sure there was some ass action on pirate ships. But that said, I get just as mad at people complaining about an all white, all hetero cast of characters as I do when people complain about gay characters or some ethnic origin other than anglo. Some people believe that you HAVE to have various ethnic backgrounds in your story or you're being racist and whitewashing your story. I've had debates on this forum about it and called racist for defending the fact that my characters are fucking white. Because that makes me racist, apparently. People need to deal with the fact that characters are characters. And that's the end of it. If you don't like it, move on to the next story. There are millions of them.
In fact, to quote China Miéville in an interview he gave Jeff Vandermeer concerning "penetration panic" in novels (The Terror, The Sparrow) and the desexualizing of gay male characters to make them acceptable... Miéville: Specifically, the obsessive locus of the evil character’s evil in the fact that he was an engager in anal sex. I know lots of people point to the fact that there’s a “sympathetic” gay character too (who reads, incidentally, to me, very like someone invented because an editor said “we really need a counterbalance to the evil gay”) but that character is explicitly defined as a goody because he doesn’t have sex on the ship. That’s nothing to do with historical research or attitudes (and parenthetically the idea that in a crew that size two men only would be fucking is ludicrous) but to do with the text’s pathological Terror of anal penetration which is (spoiler!–hello The Sparrow) the usual way culture gets to have a deep-seated pathologising of gay sexuality alongside putatively liberal attitudes to desexualised gay men. http://www.jeffvandermeer.com/2009/06/16/god-thats-a-merciless-question-china-mievilles-interview-from-weird-tales/
@Selbbin - I just do what works for the story. Sometimes my characters are white dudes, sometimes my characters are a black woman, an alien child, and an Asian dude. Way I see it, authors should feel free to write whatever the hell they want without feeling like they've got a metaphorical gun to their head. I often find topics like this interesting because, as a person with a hearing disability, I don't see any fictional character that 'represents' me. Oh sure, you've got the blind characters, those in custom-made wheelchairs that can fly or shoot lasers, those with robotic arms, etc., but never those with hearing loss. Hell, the only reason I got in on the whole 'blind character' gig with my own stories was because that seemed to be the comfortable, popular thing among writers who have disabled characters. Even got to the point where every single story idea I had had at least one blind character because...well...because for no real reason at all. None of them served any purpose to the plot so they've since been removed. Now, I could forcibly change all that, make all my remaining blind characters (four, now) stone-cold deaf, but that would be counter-productive because as a writer, I'm to be open to any possibility. I shouldn't exclude one thing or another because I want to please the crowd or anything. If I make my character disabled, gay, another race, or another gender, that doesn't mean I'm pandering to the crowd. If I don't, it doesn't make me racist/sexist/homophobic/hater of disabled people. It all, frankly, depends on what makes sense to the story. Don't force something into the story just for the sake of pleasing a crowd.
It's my belief that straight men like lesbians but not gay men because of empathy, or projection. When viewing two women kissing, the straight man imagines being part of the act, and due to an attraction to women, finds this appealing. However, for a straight man to view two gay men kissing, it is looked upon as vile, because the viewer subconsiously imagines being part of the act and finds it unappealing because they are not attracted to men. Simples.
So is "penetration panic" about straight men specifically feeling uncomfortable about getting penetrated; being the recipient?
But by that logic, straight women should enjoy the image of gay men kissing - only as far as I'm aware, most don't. I think it's got far less to do with projection than simple cultural conditional. We've simply been taught that when it's two women, it's hot, and when it's two men, it's not. How popular or repulsive the general audience finds anal sex would also be interesting - where it's lesbians, there's always the option of the vagina still, which is the default way to have sex (if talking about evolution/reproduction, you could say entering the vagina is the most natural way). With gay males, the only option is anal sex - and the word as well as concept of the anus and its association with poo and everything crude and lower-class likely render the thought of anal sex as less attractive to a lot of people. In other words, my theory is that maybe people's aversion to anal sex automatically makes them view gay males as less attractive, knowing without really having to think that the way gay males could get sexual with each other would be through anal sex. Whereas for lesbians, anal sex is not the only option - it's an option, but not the only. Since insertion into the vagina is in line with the default norm of "how to have sex" (eg. penis into the vagina), people probably find that easier to accept and thus find it more attractive? All this is just theory though. I could be wrong. Edited to add: it's also interesting that sex toys for women seem much more the norm and open than sex toys for men. I've only ever seen one sex toy for men and it looked rather strange lol. Whereas sex toys for women are openly advertised. Wonder if there's a link there regarding how we react to lesbians vs gays.
I understand fully what you are saying Mckk. As far as my friends go, you do have to remember that they are in Hawaii where gays have log been accepted as part of the culture even before Capt. Cook landed. So yes, the way they are treated does differ depending on the location. Where racism is concerned. Bayview can make all the assumptions she likes but will not get it right until she has the facts. I am British born from an Italian background. Moved to Australia as a child, married a native Hawaiian who was a kumu (cultural specialist) and now have son in laws from Ghana and Puerto Rico. Because I have brought my kids up to treat people based on their individual merit as I have done. Yes, I have been the target of racism but I do have a thick skin and brush it off or give back better than I receive. I have had this in Australia and Hawaii. I have lost count of the number of Americans who have asked me if Australia has kangaroos jumping down the main street. My response is usually a flippant. Yes we used to ride them to school everyday. I have learned from experience that if people bait you and you take the bait then they will keep doing it. You get no where. There is a certain amount of truth in saying that I do not sympathise with the ongoing struggle because I am not gay myself. Because I am unable to put myself in their shoes, I and anyone other hetero sexual cannot fully comprehend how they feel. That is as honest as I can be. One thing they will say however, is that I am very upfront. I might not say what they want to hear but they can trust me to be brutally honest. I would not be a very good friend if I only pandered to their views. I expect the same from them if I am wrong. Prejudice is something that is learned. Any child at an early age will play with anyone that they like. It is later that they start to absorb (for want of a better word) discriminatory attitudes. This is often a reflection of the way their parents feel. I did say to Bayview that I think prejudice will always exist. I am far from being in a perfect position. Although my kids are 50% Hawaiian, my grandkids are less than 50% and because of American laws are not considered Hawaiian and are deprived of the same rights that their mother and grand mother were. What started this argument was me saying that "I am contradicting myself but a case could be made that gay rights do push themselves but who really cares. What they do in private is not an issue if it does not hurt anyone else. Gay pride marches/mardi gras achieve nothing, your gay, so what? I do not promote that I am hetero sexual, it is no one else's business." Like it or not it is true. The marches first started as a political issue with less than 20 marchers, who were ignored. Other marches started but until they became more of a party with corporate sponsorship and lost the political issues no one really noticed them.
To an extent, yes, but in practice in the narrative of a novel, if no one gets penetrated then no one is penetrating either, by default. In the interview Miéville is speaking specifically about Dan Simmon's novel The Terror, though he later gets into The Sparrow as well: Simmons is usually a pretty liberal writer. I've read lots of his books, most memorably, his Hyperion series where he gives the religious epistemology no quarter. In The Terror, the only "couple" engaging in buggery consists of the slimiest character in the crew (described as a rat in human form by both behavior and appearance) and a great hulking tree of a man who is childishly good natured and also described by one of the officers as very probably suffering from a cognitive disorder. The narrative makes use of the word retarded. In the story, Rat-Man is the penetrator and Tree-Man is the recipient. Later in the tale we have Tree-Man turn against Rat-Man and we get a metaphoric revenge for Rat-Man's evil wish to penetrate the simple, good natured purity of Tree-Man. Tree-Man is redeemed as unwitting victim of Rat-Man's vile penetration. In The Sparrow, our first-ever first-contact expedition, funded by the Vatican (yes, I know...), brings our mixed group of Catholic priests and very liberal do-gooders into contact with not one but two sentient species on the far away world. Stuff happens. The priest who has the greatest contact with and impact on the mission, a Puerto Rican fellah' no less, has a moment with the aliens that the other priests are pretty sure counts as a miracle in the eyes of the church, but then ends up a male prostitute in an alien brothel. The better part of the book is about piecing the story together between miracle and haggling prices for handies and blowies. The end result of him being a prostitute is also, obviously, related to his crippling crisis of faith. "Oh, Lord, why did you bring me to a new flock only to make me have to give up the booty-love to the aliens. What did I do to deserve this most extreme of penance, the booty-love? Oh, my poor booty. Don't touch booty because it won't touch you. Don't touch my booty, cuz it's not the thing to do." @KaTrian ETA: Also, in The Sparrow, the head priest in charge of the mission, a man with a face for radio but with a heart of solid gold, comes out as gay and his ugliness and priestliness are used as an easy excuse for his sexlessness. Here we have a clearer example of the desexualized, acceptable, gay male character. EATA: The Puerto Rican fellah' of the penitential booty-love is also a stunningly skilled linguist and interpreter. I was like "Look! It's me, only as a priest! And with a polar opposite view on booty love! This reader is conflicted."
Potential sub-culture difference alert! Slash fan-fiction and covering your walls with pictures of cute boys kissing started trending when I was in high school. We were into fantasy, metal music, emo bands (not the music...), J-rock and pop etc. Boy-on-boy action was hugely popular. But is it like emasculating or something? Some kind of social coding inside the male brain that tells them "you shouldn't be the recipient or else you'll be less of a man, in some way submissive, akin to a woman"?
I guess so, I don't honestly know. I would say it's something that can be noticed in straight men who tend to be closed-minded I suppose. It's not something I feel comfortable elaborating on. I'd prefer to not say exactly why. I hope it can eventually become a thing of the past, one day.
That's what I'm thinking. Guys are taught that men don't kiss men, but women are cute. So when ladies kiss, that's hot. When guys do, that's not. Society can be so close-minded at times. :/ it honestly shouldn't matter.
Acutally, the M/M group in Goodreads is very well populated, and mostly by women. I belong to another group in GR and the women simply love the idea of men kissing and much more. Take a look for yourself. https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/20149
Also yaoi in Japan (true yaoi, not the cover-all term it has come to mean in America) is drawn by and for woman. Bara is the male counterpart to this kind of M/M manga.
My experiences in romance publishing contradict a lot of these ideas. First, the idea that women don't find man on man action hot - contradicted by the explosive growth of m/m romance, where the primary audience is women. complete with complaints from some gay men about fetishization. Second, the association of anal sex with gay men - studies have shown that lots of gay men don't indulge, and plenty of straight couples do. And back to romance novels - there's plenty of anal being treated as sexy by female readers, no concerns about it being associated with poo. The theory I've found most intriguing related to homophobia being focused on gay men is that it's actually an extended form of misogyny. Women are lesser, so any man who allows himself to 'play the part' of a woman (via sexual penetration, cross-dressing, effeminate behaviour, etc) is essentially a gender traitor. A lot of homophobes will be okay with gay men as long as they're butch or straight-acting; it's the ones who dare to weaken their manhood by adopting stereotypically feminine behaviour that tend to get the worst of the hostility. Just a theory. But I find it intriguing.
