What is a 'gay man?', an article I'm writing

[Lube]

I fear my fellow citizens have completely lost the ability to think. To question. To reason.

It wants the world spoon fed to it.

And takes it in wide-mouthed, uncritically.

 

[Lube]

Didn't it take you forty plus years to cut through your own bullshit? That's not as quick as you think.

Yes it did.

I didn't have the advantage of something like JUB so that I could hear people blowing giant holes through my smog of denial.

You do.

You reject it.

It's your choice. You have to live with it.

I own up to my mistakes, quite publicly. If you think it embarrasses me, you're mistaken. Learning from mistakes is a good thing. Not learning from mistakes is a bad thing.

 

[Lube]

As do I, but I feel this way because of the outcome of the latest election, not some message board discussion where people are arguing over the assigned masculinity of sitcoms.

The difference is that in elections, all you see is the outcome.

On this board to get to see the process of the wheels of reason turning.

Or, apparently, not turning.

 

[altlover85]

I fear my fellow citizens have completely lost the ability to think. To question. To reason.

It wants the world spoon fed to it.

And takes it in wide-mouthed, uncritically.

I don't think it's losing the ability to think. I think it's a matter of seeing things from a different perspective.

 

[Lube]

I don't think it's losing the ability to think. I think it's a matter of seeing things from a different perspective.

Read the replies on the Coming Out forum, especially for some of the trickier questions. Are the best respondents taking everything each poster says at face value? Or do you see things like, "well, what really seems to be happening..."

When you vote in an election, do you take the ads at face value?

Do you just read the news, or do you read news analysis pieces, too?

 

[fetaby]

Read the replies on the Coming Out forum, especially for some of the trickier questions. Are the best respondents taking everything each poster says at face value? Or do you see things like, "well, what really seems to be happening..."

When you vote in an election, do you take the ads at face value?

Do you just read the news, or do you read news analysis pieces, too?

Uh huh....

So do you mind explaining how generalizing and stereotyping a person before hand, based on one characteristic they possess fits into this?

Making informed choices based on information gathered after the introduction of an idea or problem is the exact opposite of what you've been championing this entire thread.

 

[altlover85]

Read the replies on the Coming Out forum, especially for some of the trickier questions. Are the best respondents taking everything each poster says at face value? Or do you see things like, "well, what really seems to be happening..."

When you vote in an election, do you take the ads at face value?

Do you just read the news, or do you read news analysis pieces, too?

Oh I understand that, but there's a question of interpretation involved that isn't always involved in political ads or the news. We aren't always dealing with absolutes like events or actions, but instead with what is behind those actions or trying to interpret what those actions mean.

For example, if someone posts I'm totally masculine and no one knows I'm gay, but then says I have a collection of Lady Gaga albums in my room, they read Oscar Wilde, and are big into musicals, then you might conclude that other people are likely to think they are gay.

I would agree with this conclusion, however it's really just circumstantial evidence and you have to interpret what that means. You come to the conclusion that it's likely that people would know that this person is gay based on your ideas about what gay people like and what society thinks gay people like.

Does that make sense?

 

[Lube]

Oh I understand that, but there's a question of interpretation involved that isn't always involved in political ads or the news. We aren't always dealing with absolutes like events or actions, but instead with what is behind those actions or trying to interpret what those actions mean.

For example, if someone posts I'm totally masculine and no one knows I'm gay, but then says I have a collection of Lady Gaga albums in my room, they read Oscar Wilde, and are big into musicals, then you might conclude that other people are likely to think they are gay.

I would agree with this conclusion, however it's really just circumstantial evidence and you have to interpret what that means. You come to the conclusion that it's likely that people would know that this person is gay based on your ideas about what gay people like and what society thinks gay people like.

Does that make sense?

Yes.

And it's just circumstantial evidence that local chambers of commerce are leaving the national chamber of commerce in droves. By itself, it proves nothing. But read the article in today's Washington Post, and they have an excellent anlysis of the news.

Facts tell you very little. It's the conglomeration of facts and inferences from creating patterns from them that allow humans to make sense of the world, rather than just being idle observers.

 

[Lube]

Check out this woman with a brain.

Rather than take the informed, rational path that she did, I imagine a lot of posters in this thread would say things like, "dressing up as a girl proves nothing" or "maybe he just likes long hair" or "maybe he just likes Scooby Doo and that was the first character he thought of".

Sure.

 

[Lord Booticus]

"dressing up as a girl proves nothing"

If you think that me allowing my son to be a female character for Halloween is somehow going to ‘make’ him gay then you are an idiot.

... Actually that IS what she's said.

 

[Shepherd 2]

Gay men are not a different gender, we are still men.

An article about gay men is at best an oxymoron. Of course first we are men. What is gay is not something you can be stereotypical about much beyond the liking of other men as sexual partners. I am afraid that will not make a college term paper.

Look for another topic.
Shep+

 

[Dduder]

Even though I think that Lube is a rude asshole, I salute his fortitude in arguing with a bunch of hypocritical nutters who prefer to cover their eyes instead of seeing and admitting to the painful truth.

 

[Dduder]

Not really. I just think some people just don't know when to let an issue go. It becomes an obsession. It doesn't matter if the person is wrong or right. Take you, for example. lol

What about me, Elvin? I am a 6'4 165 lbs nerd loser with no life. What do I have to lose in these debates? My dignity? I have none.

 

[altlover85]

Questions on a post

Ignore this.