fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #340 ]

[ SECRET POST #340 ]

⌈ Secret Post #340 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Posting for Shahni! And early because I've got ~~pseuicide~~ class.

Secrets Left to Post: 06 pages, 150 secrets from Secret Submission Post #049.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 1 2 3 4 ] broken links, [ 1 2] not!secrets, 0 not!fandom.
Next Secret Post: Tomorrow, Wednesday, December 12th, 2007.
Current Secret Submission Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Because fandom is always MUCH MORE SERIOUS BUSINESS than comic books.

*points at above cat macro*

Fandom is not wholly separate from real world issues. Fandom is not completely free of things like heterocentrism. Yes, it's a little off-putting to see this topic equated with "omg, Batman or Spidey u guyz?" And no matter how much the people who aren't down with slash or yaoi or whatever try to say that they aren't homophobic, well... every rant, every discussion I've ever seen or been in on the topic has come off as vaguely tinged with homophobia and a general lack of awareness of how cultural/societal norms can be bigoted. Like it or not, we all bring baggage to fandom.

And I see no cat macro, but it was probably lame anyway.

"I find your statement to be ironic and full of lulz," is what the macro said.

I do understand where you're coming from, on the heterocentric (what a fabulous word, I must use it more often) front. However, I simply see this as being the result of a culture where statistically, 90% of the people are heterosexual. Homosexuality is not the norm. It never will be (hopefully, or the human race won't survive very long).

I think that this whole argument is being blown out of proportion. Yes, some of the people who whinge and moan about yaoi are probably homophobic. No, not all of them are. It doesn't smack of homophobia at all in my opinion to say something like, "Dear God, could I find something in fandom that isn't yaoi for once please."

In conclusion - people have different preferences. Most of these preferences are as trivial as favorite comic book characters - I certainly care about as much about someone's orientation as I do about their favorite anime. And what this basically comes down to is what kind of porn people like to read (or not, in the case of the genficcers), which, as I mentioned above, is certainly not serious business.

However, I simply see this as being the result of a culture where statistically, 90% of the people are heterosexual. Homosexuality is not the norm. It never will be (hopefully, or the human race won't survive very long).
Are you an advocate of the free market of sexuality? VOTE RON PAUL!!!

"Dear God, could I find something in fandom that isn't yaoi for once please."
How are you not finding it? Seriously. Is someone hiding all your not-buttsex? That's the only conclusion I can come to.

I certainly care about as much about someone's orientation as I do about their favorite anime.
I wish I could get married to my boyfriend but I can't because the state government only recognizes Sailor Moon marriages and we are Pokemon fans :(:(:(:(:(

Thank you for your hard work. You manage to actually make me sound rather like a bigot. I expect it took effort.

This "free market of sexuality" concept is interesting. Please explain further what exactly it is you meant. PS: Ron Paul is an anti-federalist, a stance I happen to agree with. No, I don't intend on voting for him. But yes, he occasionally makes sense.

Please see "creating an intelligent argument" and notice that not all views expressed in a level-headed, balanced argument have to be your views. I enjoy my buttsex, thanks.

As to the last - I wasn't talking about what our esteemed, backwards government may or may not let people do with their lives. What I was talking about was preference, which is an entirely different thing. Whether you are homosexual or not is only relevant to you and your partner. It is none of my business, and therefore, I do not care.

Again, I must wonder if you were a journalist at some point. You're certainly adept at removing people's quotes from the context in order to make them sound foolish.

"I certainly care about as much about someone's orientation as I do about their favorite anime."

I will admit that I had to read that a few times to get what you were saying. just as an FYI, when emotions get heated, parties only hear the first half of a sentence. so it could have been (severely and grossly) misinterpreted, in accordance with other things you said.

still, <sarcasm> Now I'm all butt-hurt that you don't care about the anime I like. I shall have to go throw myself off a high building now </sarcasm> because it had to be said *g*

>_>

It is possibly too much to ask nowadays for people to argue rationally? I suppose so. It makes me sad.

Awwwwww, poor baby. We can still be best friends as long as you like Spiderman ^.^

Homosexuality is not the norm.

But there's a difference between the norm (the "majority") and the normative ("recognized as normal and not treated as the exception"), and that I think is what we're mostly going for and what often goes unacknowledged!

But it is the exception. The "rule" is heterosexuality - because it is the majority. The "exception to the rule" is homosexuality. "Normal" is, yes, relative, but I wish "not normal" wouldn't hold such bad connotations - because "not normal" simply means "something that is not the norm" by which I mean the statistical norm.

Yes, but generally speaking, when you go through life entirely with quite a lot of things angled to make things easy for other people, and making things by comparison rather more difficult for you (ie, kissing your spouse goodbye in public, medical benefits in a lot of places in the world, buying jewelry for your sig other, being hired, taking your partner to work's parties, and other such terrible things that you get called out for because your spouse is the "wrong" sex, as well as things like -- well, when I was in high school, you had to take people of the opposite sex to school dances, or, you know, finding anything to relate to in popular media!) ...it's frustrating. Because yes, being in the minority means that you're the exception to the rule. However, being "treated as the exception to the normal" generally means "given less freedom, judged, or treated negatively."

Yes, I agree that it would be nice if "not normal" didn't hold such bad connotations, but I don't particularly think the words matter -- I think the fact that "not being normal" is causing negative reactions in real life (by which I mean either people responding negatively, or the situations which other people have is just absent or in the negative) is far more important than reclaiming the words. :/

This is why I made the difference of norm and normative. Homosexuality isn't the norm. However, homosexuality isn't treated as normative, either. It's treated as abnormal (which, slicing diction or not, I think you can admit is very different from "Not normal").

Edited to fix a typo.

Edited 2007-12-13 02:01 (UTC)

Yes, yes, and yes again. I very much agree with you, and fervently wish that homosexuals weren't discriminated against - it's a very personal cause, I assure you. However, in an effort to not make myself a hypocrite (read: other people's sexuality is none of my business and neither is mine theirs), I won't elaborate.

It saddens me greatly that our esteemed backwards government can't seem to get over itself and its overly dated, backwards religious dogma and just allow everyone to live and let live.

I do realize that I can get extremely annoying when I start to argue semantics. I guess it's my inner English teacher coming to the fore. I believe, however, that the gay community could have an extremely effective argument if, whenever faced with an accusation of "being abnormal," they would collectively say, "No, my preferences are not normal in that they are not the norm. That does not mean I am any less entitled to the rights you have," instead of insisting loudly and falsely that they are normal, perfectly normal thank you very much.

(

agentmoreau on her actual journal because hey, responding in an intelligent conversation with controversial topics in an RP journal? Less than classy. I forgot I was still replying with it.)

I totally appreciate this response, by the way.

I'm Canadian, and I was never so grateful as when my sig other had a gall stone attack in the middle of the night and I got to ride with her in the ambulance with nobody questioning my right to be there when I said I was the spouse. I was also very aware that it was something that was rare enough to be grateful for.

I never said annoying! Linguistics are a very interesting thing, and to be fair, I started it (with the normative vs "the norm" thing). *g* I only mentioned that last point because the opposite of normative (being a term with connotations different from "normal") isn't "not normal", it's "abnormal". *g* I think you have a point, but the trouble with the reclamation of language is that it's not just about what you say, it's about how it's received. And while the gay community can say that, it would be a long time, I think, before it was received in that way instead of "oh they admit they're abnormal/abominations/rar!" ways. Even "Queer" (with the same connotative meaning split of unusual vs abnormal) is still in the process of being reclaimed -- it's come a long way in that it's used academically and so on, but it's still being used as an insult. :/

(XD Don't worry about it! I've almost replied with my demon cannibal rp journal before -- it's easy to do.)

Very good point. I had and still have a problem with the word "faggot" - I have a dislike toward it bordering on loathing, and no other word in the English language has the ability to make me as uncomfortable. When I think about it, it seems quite ridiculous - it is only a word, after all. But even when gay people use it, I can't stand it. You would never hear it coming out of my mouth and I get uncomfortable when it is said.

I have also caught myself saying, and have been ashamed of saying, "That's gay" with connotations of stupidity. Just because my best friend uses it all the time, and he happens to be gay, doesn't mean it's alright.

You make a very good point about the elasticity of language, and how difficult it is to reclaim a word after it has been turned toward something negative - and inversely, how incredibly easy it is to make that same word negative in the first place.

I certainly care about as much about someone's orientation as I do about their favorite anime.

Oh you do not. I wish people would stop treating sexuality like it's incidental in society. It isn't. It's huge. And we make impressions based upon it: we look at how feminine or masculine a person's appearance and behavior are, we speculate about sexual partners, we discuss crushes and dating and marriage, we make jokes about sex, and we used marginalized orientations as insults.

I'm incredibly queer and I'm homophobic because I was raised, as we pretty much all were, in a society where heterosexual norms are praised and homosexual norms as laughed at, ignored, or rallied against. But I'm willing to acknowledge those biases, examine where they came from, and try to overcome them. But anyone who says they have no biases is simply not aware of them. Moreover, it's a little insulting that something affecting my day-to-day life doesn't rate much higher than my taste in fictional characters (which affects pretty much not a damn thing). I hear it being compared to physical traits, like hair and eye color too, but that's also disingenuous; people comment on my hair and eye color all the time, positively and negatively. People notice this shit and it affects their opinions.

The point is that, no, we are not a point where it's all just innocent preference, and I am deeply suspicious of anyone who has to whine on and on about how they can't find anything that hasn't been touched by the gay, since obviously something touched a nerve there.

Oh yes, I certainly do. It is frankly none of my business unless I am actually trying to date the person in question, and even then it's only my business for as long as I pursue them (or not). My sexuality is therefore nobody else's business. Yes, I personally care as equally about "I write Death Note yaoi" as I do about "I am a lesbian." Yes, I certainly know my friends' sexualities, but we didn't introduce each other by saying "Hi, I'm X, I'm gay. You?" I found it out gradually just like I found out everything else about them.

How would you like people to start treating sexuality, if you don't want them to treat it like it's incidental? I think that's the best way you could possibly treat sexuality. You have brown eyes, you have freckles on your nose, you're gay (or not). Nobody has to know about your sexuality unless you actually tell people about it, and so while I know firsthand, absolutely, what it is like to experience discrimination, I have a lot fewer problems than I used to when I would scream my opinions from the rooftops.

Maybe I'm an anomaly. But I can certainly hope - fervently hope - that if I maintain this long enough, other people will see that I'm actually happier this way, and everyone else might possibly get a clue. Live and let live works both ways. Gay people don't want straight people discriminating against them? Yeah, and straight people don't want rainbow flags and pink triangles shoved at them wherever they go.

EDIT: Replying with my real journal, because replying with an RP journal while discussing a serious topic is extremely not classy.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ SECRET POST #340 ]

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