A Place of Safety
I expect simple behaviours here. Friendship, and love.
Any advice should be from the perspective of the person asking, not the person giving!
We have had to make new membership moderated to combat the huge number of spammers who register
















You are here: Home > Forum > A Place of Safety > General Talk > Fewer gays, fewer straights. more "just people" ?
Fewer gays, fewer straights. more "just people" ?  [message #73670] Tue, 28 November 2017 00:00 Go to next message
NW is currently offline  NW

On fire!
Location: Worcester, England
Registered: January 2005
Messages: 1558



I'm lucky enough to be able to have pretty open and deep discussions with my 21-year-old niece, and her boyfriend/fiance. Something we talked about a fair bit last time they came to stay with me was how we label sexuality, and to what extent we need to. Both of them tell me that their friends, nearly all of whom are students in London, increasingly don't identify as "gay" or "straight", nor really even as "bisexual", but tend to see things just in terms of who they are currently having a relationship with.

Obviously, it's different for me - I've been fully (though not aggressively) out as a gay man, and moderately activist, for very nearly four decades now. "Gay" is an essential component of my self-image, and of my social personna.  But I think I feel that if youngsters are less attached to such labels, it's probably a good thing ... even if it's only a minority of liberal youngsters in a fairly diverse and accepting city.

That doesn't mean that I'll stop fighting for "gay" causes. But somehow, in my head, I think I'm in the process of re-framing them as "people" causes: the right of adults to form relationships with each other regardless of genders.

Have others here run into this "not really identifying as gay or straight or bi" thing? What do we think? Are those who like me have spent over half a lifetime fighting the "gay" corner in some sense now superseded (I for one hope we are) by a coming generation having a wider and more inbuilt understanding of diversity ?



"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. ... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night devoid of stars." Martin Luther King
Re: Fewer gays, fewer straights. more "just people" ?  [message #73674 is a reply to message #73670] Tue, 28 November 2017 09:13 Go to previous messageGo to next message
timmy

Has no life at all
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13739



Yes. I live in a small town with what I, at 65, thus raised to 'fear' being gay, know are many gay couples. Yet they are not referred to as gay couples. Everyone uses their names, not their society granted label.

I'm trying to portray that in my recent writing, certainly in my current story

In my own way I am an activist in that I seek to influence the thinking of others. I am active for equal human rights, not for gay rights.

Sexuality doesn't matter.



Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
Re: Fewer gays, fewer straights. more "just people" ?  [message #73678 is a reply to message #73670] Thu, 30 November 2017 22:16 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Cynus is currently offline  Cynus

Getting started
Location: Salt Lake City
Registered: September 2017
Messages: 20



I've struggled my entire life with how to define my sexuality, because I've never fit snugly into any of the available labels. Even when I reach into some of the incredibly specific ones out there (the asexuality community has spent a great deal of time analyzing and defining different terms for sexual orientation), it still doesn't quite work. I like who and what I like, and that's all there is to it. Have I claimed various labels in the past? Definitely, but they were usually for the purposes of communicating a specific point to people who rely on those labels for their understanding of the world. Labels are tools, plain and simple, and should be used as such. For a long time the label "gay" has been useful to give many people a name for the cause they've been fighting for. It's a rallying cry, something which we can use to succinctly communicate our common ground. Is it a necessary label? Define necessity. It's effective and great, but can we reach a point where labeling sexuality doesn't matter? I think so, and I even think that's the inevitable future of humanity. It might take a century or two for the whole world to catch up to that, though.



"Be or be not, there is no why." - Cynus
Re: Fewer gays, fewer straights. more "just people" ?  [message #73684 is a reply to message #73678] Fri, 01 December 2017 22:21 Go to previous messageGo to next message
American_Alex

Toe is in the water
Location: New York, upstate
Registered: October 2017
Messages: 98



Back when I was younger, we had a term for such people: "Closet cases". It's the same old crap I've heard for 40+ years now, it just changes terminology every decade or so. The latest one was "g0y". Same old 'closet case', though....Even those men who declare themselves to be 'bi', 9 times out of 10, they are just plain gay, but are still clinging to the closet. Frankly, in 56 years, I've really only met 2 men who were actually bisexual, and probably 100 or more who just used that term as a cop-out. It's funny that you don't see black people who declare themselves to be either 'medium-brown' or 'variable' or 'noncommittal'.......



"Able was I ere I saw Elba"
Re: Fewer gays, fewer straights. more "just people" ?  [message #73685 is a reply to message #73684] Sat, 02 December 2017 00:08 Go to previous messageGo to next message
NW is currently offline  NW

On fire!
Location: Worcester, England
Registered: January 2005
Messages: 1558



I think "closet cases" are something completely different ... and I hope the number of people in the closet is diminishing. In fact, among the 15-30 age group here in the UK, I'm damn sure it is!

My niece's generation seem far more ready to say things like "So far, all my partners have been boys, but I've certainly had crushes on girls, and who knows what's in the future?", and I find that very encouraging.



"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. ... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night devoid of stars." Martin Luther King
Re: Fewer gays, fewer straights. more "just people" ?  [message #73686 is a reply to message #73685] Sat, 02 December 2017 08:57 Go to previous message
timmy

Has no life at all
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13739



Being closeted is a function of the society we live in. In the UK I am neutral about my sexuality today. If it is ever important in a conversation I will reveal it, if not, then not.

in 1965 when I discovered and denied I was gay I was absolutely closeted, so closeted that I was terrified of my parents, lest they sent me to be cured. They would have done so. That lasted until early 2000. Then I became aggressively proud to be gay. I was slapped down on that by my wife because it was hurting her; in truth it was probably hurting me, too.

Were I in Russia I would be closeted. Were I in an Islamic nation in areas of the world that were once the cradle of civilisation and actually understood life, I would either be closeted or dead. I used to correspond with a lovely Iranian young man. One day that correspondence ceased. I have hoped often that he has found a way to stay alive, but I doubt I will ever know for sure. I presume he has been executed, either by his state or by a vigilante group.

What would I do in weird christian cults such as the LDS or the JWs? I hope I would have left the cults. Now I have outlived my parents I know that having no parental family is not a bad thing. Shunning, though, is unpleasant. And I would have ben raised with the steel rod of cultish faith inside me. What would have become of my emotional wellbeing?

I am married to a woman. She is lovely, pretty, svelte, feminine. Our lovemaking has been amazing. I have dated girls, and has sex with them. I am not aroused by the female form, except occasionally. I am certain I am not bisexual, and yet others woudl suggest that I am.

I have a cousin who, born male, is female. She retains male genitalia, and has added breasts. She reasons that she enjoys sex so is not going to take the chance on sexual function being removed should surgery sever nerves. She prefers sex with women to men, but enjoys both. Does that make her bisexual, or does she start to show that labels have little meaning except as a shorthand that we choose for ourselves?

My son was at school with boys who had deep and meaningful loving and sexual relationships with other boys and today appear to be heterosexual. Others appear to be homosexual. Oddly, the latter didn't have relationships with other boys at school. One of those who had the deep relationship with other boys and appear to be heterosexual went on to kill women in Hong Kong and is now rotting in a Hong Kong jail. I suspect, though, that he was simply weird. He was ever a weird child.

Where do the labels come from? We are not labelled by older religions. They simply appear to favour one form of sexual congress over another. "Outbreed the neoghbouring tribe, we will survive better that way because we can kill more of them!" does seem to be a long term view, but view it is, and it's common to Roman Catholicism, Islam, Judasim, LDS, JW, and a whole slew more. What a shame they all recommend overpopulation, but no ownder they have to control their adherents so tightly.

Was it Kinsey's fault?

Who decided that "the sin of Sodom" was anal sex? Many scholars suggest it was a mistranslation anyway, not unlike the alleged parting of the Red Sea. (Wrong sea, wrong place. Moishe knew the route through the marsh).

I am attracted to males, but I am not 100% homosexual. There is a lovely female in my life. Rarely, very rarley, myhead will turn for a pretty girl. It turns often for a handsome boy. As a teen I could get erect in maths lessons, or riding my bike, or with an attractive sofa. Boys were infinitely preferablem but, had a girl offered the opportunity I would have used that opportunity.

I think I have alwasy been 'just people'. It was society that said I was a fucking poof, a queer, a fairy, a nancy boy. The word 'faggot' has never really crossed the atlantic. I would have been called that, too, had it done so had I been out of my closet as a kid.

[Updated on: Sat, 02 December 2017 09:30]




Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
Previous Topic: Turkish court rules gay sex is natural
Next Topic: Catty!
Goto Forum: