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And I didn't even mention Furries!
Oct. 8th, 2010 03:24 pmKnow what really grates my cheese? People still referring to homosexuality as a "lifestyle choice." Maybe it's just me, but I can't imagine ones sexual preferences being really comparable to the specific way in which one lives. Living in a microhouse and growing all your own food is a lifestyle choice. Always dressing and acting like a fairy when you leave the house is a lifestyle choice. Getting all your clothes from Dumpster diving expeditions is more of a lifestyle choice than being gay, for crying out loud.
When did "gayness" become an entire lifestyle? What exactly is this lifestyle? Is there some kind of philosophy behind it? Did I miss a memo?
It gets on my nerves particularly because the very same people who call it a lifestyle choice (and thus make the assumption that all gay people live in ways so fundamentally different from so-called normal people) wouldn't call heterosexuality a lifestyle choice. It's still a form of sexuality, after all. Shouldn't it thus be given the same distinction?
Well, in the minds of most of the people who are still calling it a lifestyle choice, really, heterosexuality is the norm and thus there's no need to remark upon it by giving it some kind of distinction beyond "they way things should be."
There's also the implication that, in reducing it to nothing but a choice of lifestyle, all gay people are making an active decision to live the way they do and to be the way they are. They made a choice. Sure, they may have felt urges and desires for as long as they could remember, but the very second they thought to themselves, "I"m gay," they made a choice. A choice not to be themselves, mind, but a choice to live a different way. (You know, doing all sorts of deviant things like going to work, paying the bills, buying milk at the corner store...)
The assumption is also that in making that choice, they made the wrong one. And that making the choice to be heterosexual is just as easy as making the choice to wear black pants instead of blue, but those sinful homosexuals are too selfish and lazy to make that choice, and prefer living a life of evil instead.
This also discounts any examples of homosexuality demonstrated in nature, and I'm not just refering to dominance mounting here. I guess all those penguins and cats just made the choice to be sinful and Godless. And let's not even mention the level of hell reserved purely for bonobos!
There are so many implications carried by a seemingly innocent phrase, and not a single one is flattering. Hearing people say things like, "Yes, I have gay friends, and I disapprove of their lifestyle choice but I still love them," makes me grind my teeth and bite back the question as to whether these gay friends also happen to be public nudists or something. That would be a lifestyle choice. Being gay is just...
The problem with talking about this is that I can never quite decide what being gay, or bi, or ace, or any flavour of sexual preference really is. It's not exactly a choice or a decision, except in the decision that each individual makes regarding whether to pursue the urges that they feel or to try to ignore them. I wouldn't say it's genetic, since to the best of my knowledge, they have yet to discover the gay gene (or the bisexual gene, or the asexual gene, etc), and the fact at any point in their lives, anyone could suddenly have a flash on inspiration that tells them, "I like men/women/both/none," kind of acts against that. Would it being a mutation, or would it be something that could randomly get activated at any point? There are theories, but no real solid facts. Interesting statistics, but nothing definitive and predictable.
The best I can come to is that being of a non-heterosexual orientation just is. It happens. Whyever it happens, it happens. But unless someone can define the gay lifestyle, I don't think it can be called a lifestyle choice.
Some will, of course, define that lifestyle as being one in which a man enjoys having sex with another man. (Ever notice how it's men who take most of the flak here? It's like most people are content to leave homosexual women alone, for some reason. Unless the woman is bisexual, of course, and in that case she's just seen as a slut, or in denial of something...) But see my comments regarding calling heterosexuality a lifestyle choice for my counter to that. Aside from what's done in the bedroom (or wherever you happen to do it in the privacy of your home), what makes their life different from anybody else's? And to draw that fine a distinction is like saying that a person who reads mystery novels has a fundamentally different lifestyle than a person who likes to read memoirs.
I'll take things to a more personal level here. I'm asexual. It's a non-heterosexual form of sexuality, and therefore, by the standards of some, completely wrong and evil. But nuns and monks are fine, because they're just celibate. It's okay to feel horny, I guess, so long as it's toward the opposite gender, even if you don't do anything about it. Oh, except for the sects of various religions that teach that even that is wrong... Hmmm, looks like nobody wins here.
Okay, I got off track a little there. Let me get back on it.
My point is that ultimately, I don't want to have sex. I don't find much appeal in it. In terms of what's just seen on the surface, how am I indistinguishable from somebody who's just single at the moment? It's not like I make it a point to walk down the street yelling about how I don't want anyone between my legs, and most heterosexual females don't walk down the street yelling about how they can't wait to next spread their legs for a man. Stick the two of us side by side, examine our lives, and the differences you notice will not be ones relating to sexuality, I assure you.
But regardless, to some people, my preference is the wrong one. I made the wrong decision and should just learn to love the cock. How am I ever going to be a good wife and mother if I don't work on getting a man? I should stop being so lazy and selfish and just admit that I'm really a lesbian in denial.
Or... something. I guess. For all the sense that all makes.
But my sexual preferences, or lack thereof, is not my lifestyle, nor did I choose it in the way these people imply. Same thing with anyone who's homosexual, or bisexual, or pansexual, or-- I don't know, there are a hundred and one words to describe all the subtle shades of sexuality in the world right now, and I don't know them all. And to be just discarded as somebody who made the wrong choice, whose very way of living (even though it's the same way hundreds of thousands of people who are living the so-called right way do it) is an affront to others, is incredibly insulting.
Maybe people think they're being gentle when they call it a lifestyle choice. Maybe they think it's more polite than just saying, "You're doing it wrong." But it's on the same levels as saying, "People who are that way." It's putting a barrier where there ought not to be one, making sure that there an us-versus-them mentality to keep everyone seeing only the differences and none of the similarities. It's an insult. It's just a more subtle one than words like "freak" and "degenerate" are.
But given that the implication is the same, I can't help but wonder if the people who use such gentle terms are only doing it to make themselves feel better. They get to feel superior to those who'll just come right out and call a gay man a degenerate, but they get the rest comfortably knowing that they've done their job of expressing their distaste of something that's not really their business.
But if you say "person who lives an alternative lifestyle" to be gentler when what you really mean is "disgusting pervert," maybe you should stop and actually think about what you say before you say it. If you can't handle saying what you mean, then why are you trying to say it anyway?
When did "gayness" become an entire lifestyle? What exactly is this lifestyle? Is there some kind of philosophy behind it? Did I miss a memo?
It gets on my nerves particularly because the very same people who call it a lifestyle choice (and thus make the assumption that all gay people live in ways so fundamentally different from so-called normal people) wouldn't call heterosexuality a lifestyle choice. It's still a form of sexuality, after all. Shouldn't it thus be given the same distinction?
Well, in the minds of most of the people who are still calling it a lifestyle choice, really, heterosexuality is the norm and thus there's no need to remark upon it by giving it some kind of distinction beyond "they way things should be."
There's also the implication that, in reducing it to nothing but a choice of lifestyle, all gay people are making an active decision to live the way they do and to be the way they are. They made a choice. Sure, they may have felt urges and desires for as long as they could remember, but the very second they thought to themselves, "I"m gay," they made a choice. A choice not to be themselves, mind, but a choice to live a different way. (You know, doing all sorts of deviant things like going to work, paying the bills, buying milk at the corner store...)
The assumption is also that in making that choice, they made the wrong one. And that making the choice to be heterosexual is just as easy as making the choice to wear black pants instead of blue, but those sinful homosexuals are too selfish and lazy to make that choice, and prefer living a life of evil instead.
This also discounts any examples of homosexuality demonstrated in nature, and I'm not just refering to dominance mounting here. I guess all those penguins and cats just made the choice to be sinful and Godless. And let's not even mention the level of hell reserved purely for bonobos!
There are so many implications carried by a seemingly innocent phrase, and not a single one is flattering. Hearing people say things like, "Yes, I have gay friends, and I disapprove of their lifestyle choice but I still love them," makes me grind my teeth and bite back the question as to whether these gay friends also happen to be public nudists or something. That would be a lifestyle choice. Being gay is just...
The problem with talking about this is that I can never quite decide what being gay, or bi, or ace, or any flavour of sexual preference really is. It's not exactly a choice or a decision, except in the decision that each individual makes regarding whether to pursue the urges that they feel or to try to ignore them. I wouldn't say it's genetic, since to the best of my knowledge, they have yet to discover the gay gene (or the bisexual gene, or the asexual gene, etc), and the fact at any point in their lives, anyone could suddenly have a flash on inspiration that tells them, "I like men/women/both/none," kind of acts against that. Would it being a mutation, or would it be something that could randomly get activated at any point? There are theories, but no real solid facts. Interesting statistics, but nothing definitive and predictable.
The best I can come to is that being of a non-heterosexual orientation just is. It happens. Whyever it happens, it happens. But unless someone can define the gay lifestyle, I don't think it can be called a lifestyle choice.
Some will, of course, define that lifestyle as being one in which a man enjoys having sex with another man. (Ever notice how it's men who take most of the flak here? It's like most people are content to leave homosexual women alone, for some reason. Unless the woman is bisexual, of course, and in that case she's just seen as a slut, or in denial of something...) But see my comments regarding calling heterosexuality a lifestyle choice for my counter to that. Aside from what's done in the bedroom (or wherever you happen to do it in the privacy of your home), what makes their life different from anybody else's? And to draw that fine a distinction is like saying that a person who reads mystery novels has a fundamentally different lifestyle than a person who likes to read memoirs.
I'll take things to a more personal level here. I'm asexual. It's a non-heterosexual form of sexuality, and therefore, by the standards of some, completely wrong and evil. But nuns and monks are fine, because they're just celibate. It's okay to feel horny, I guess, so long as it's toward the opposite gender, even if you don't do anything about it. Oh, except for the sects of various religions that teach that even that is wrong... Hmmm, looks like nobody wins here.
Okay, I got off track a little there. Let me get back on it.
My point is that ultimately, I don't want to have sex. I don't find much appeal in it. In terms of what's just seen on the surface, how am I indistinguishable from somebody who's just single at the moment? It's not like I make it a point to walk down the street yelling about how I don't want anyone between my legs, and most heterosexual females don't walk down the street yelling about how they can't wait to next spread their legs for a man. Stick the two of us side by side, examine our lives, and the differences you notice will not be ones relating to sexuality, I assure you.
But regardless, to some people, my preference is the wrong one. I made the wrong decision and should just learn to love the cock. How am I ever going to be a good wife and mother if I don't work on getting a man? I should stop being so lazy and selfish and just admit that I'm really a lesbian in denial.
Or... something. I guess. For all the sense that all makes.
But my sexual preferences, or lack thereof, is not my lifestyle, nor did I choose it in the way these people imply. Same thing with anyone who's homosexual, or bisexual, or pansexual, or-- I don't know, there are a hundred and one words to describe all the subtle shades of sexuality in the world right now, and I don't know them all. And to be just discarded as somebody who made the wrong choice, whose very way of living (even though it's the same way hundreds of thousands of people who are living the so-called right way do it) is an affront to others, is incredibly insulting.
Maybe people think they're being gentle when they call it a lifestyle choice. Maybe they think it's more polite than just saying, "You're doing it wrong." But it's on the same levels as saying, "People who are that way." It's putting a barrier where there ought not to be one, making sure that there an us-versus-them mentality to keep everyone seeing only the differences and none of the similarities. It's an insult. It's just a more subtle one than words like "freak" and "degenerate" are.
But given that the implication is the same, I can't help but wonder if the people who use such gentle terms are only doing it to make themselves feel better. They get to feel superior to those who'll just come right out and call a gay man a degenerate, but they get the rest comfortably knowing that they've done their job of expressing their distaste of something that's not really their business.
But if you say "person who lives an alternative lifestyle" to be gentler when what you really mean is "disgusting pervert," maybe you should stop and actually think about what you say before you say it. If you can't handle saying what you mean, then why are you trying to say it anyway?
