Homosexuals

[BobKKKindle$]

From the Socialist Worker article 'Gays should be proud of our History'


...choose a same sex friend, hold hands and attempt to shop anywhere outside the very few “gay tolerance zones”. Retribution will be swift, particularly if you are male. A more tolerant attitude towards women is likely to be a result of their sexuality being taken less seriously rather than a symptom of greater freedom.

Previously I had simply considered those that do not have a 'mainstream' sexual orientation to be a single group but increasingly I am getting more interested in LGBT issues and this is something I feel should be discussed. Do any comrades agree with the description and explanation given above, and what other differences in the form of repression and discrimination exist between gays and lesbians, and is any data avaliable on comparitive suicide rates for young gays and lesbians?

I ask about suicide rates because the article suggests that this is one of the most serious social consequences, especially for young people, of homophobia:


This means that LGBT young people and those assumed to be so are five times more likely to attempt and commit suicide than their counterparts, far more likely to underachieve or leave school early and far more likely to live with the consequences of bullying for the rest of their lives. These are very serious issues.

The article itself is actually about a 'LGBT History month' and is found here : http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=5849

EDIT: Could a Mod please correct my spelling mistake in the title? Cheers.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Done -- nice article; how did I manage to miss this???

[la-troy]

that thing is so true in my country.

Case in point a couple a mounts ago I was In a bus and we passed too guys hugging. The whole bus broke out in verbal abuses and other such things.( I, Unfortunately could not pass up a opportunity to hit out against guy's from KC) . however when anyone see's two girls hugging it is perfectly ok.
But thats just people not knowing if the individuals are actually gay. Although we claim to be a homophobic society anger towards homosexuals are seem to only be directed at gay men. You see a lesbian is considered sexxy, hot, kinky among other things while a gay man is considered disgusting vile sinful among other things.

[Dominicana_1965]

The reason why society's policing is far less negative on female relationships is because of their socially constructed gender/role. Because women are currently the 'sexual objects' it receives a "get go" from society, especially males. One of the main reasons is because males can imagine dominating (utilizing THEIR gender role) both of these females, another is because of gender roles that imply that women are more "sensitive" more "touchy", it goes seen as alright and not a big deal.

If males were the sexual objects in a worldwide scale then I believe that males would be in the current same sex treatment that lesbians/bi's receive from our society, it just so happens that the "sexy, freak" implications fell on women because of their socially constructed gender roles.

[Jaden]

I've always found that men don't actually like lesbians but they like seeing girls make out and such things but are still willing to take on a man. So it's not really that lesbians are more tolerated but that women that are willing to perform sexual acts on another female for male gratification is what's expected. Most homosexual-intolerant men that I've come across don't actually like lesbians that actually have not interest in doing anything sexual with a man. They think it's unnatural and pointless for the most part. Though it does definitely seem that lesbians are tolerated more in this society than homosexual men.

[Chicano Shamrock]

I don't think society is more likely to accept lesbians when they are holding hands and such. Only if they are young and pretty will they be accepted. If they are old or just average looking people than they will be just as hated but probably not beaten up.

The swift retribution thing is certainly true even around here. I live in California and sometimes it is called "the land of fruits and nuts". Even in more liberal areas and cities people are still gay bashed.

My cousin was even gay bashed and he is not even gay. Him and a friend of his have been friends for a long time but they have kind of butted heads a lot. Anyways they were drunk at a bar with other friends and they went to a corner of the room and had a serious talk as long time friends. They were finished and hugged and some skinheads or whatever came over and pushed my cousin to the floor and socked the other guy while saying "we don't allow your kind here". Their friends were outside at the time and they were jumped until the others heard the commotion and came in and helped fight the boneheads.

[TC]

i think this is true on the level of homophobic individuals but not true on the level of social oppression.

We need to remember that what motivates an individual to hate a group of people is frequently not the same as what motivates an institution to cultivate social prejudice. Analyzing one does not necessarily point to the origin of the other.


Its true that homophobic men, meaning guys who truly feel a sense of visceral disgust not political/ideological/religious disdain, tend to feel it, i would guess exclusively towards gay men and not towards lesbians. They might also have disdain towards lesbians, maybe just so they can be politically/religiously consistent with their hatred for gay men, but its really the gay men that bother them. I don't think i know any impulsively homophobic guys personally and virtually all studies and theories lack any empirical basis sufficent to support their claims, but from anecdotal evidence i think what bothers them is effeminacy in men when they've constructed their sense of what it means for a man to be dignified as traditionally masculine. Seeing men behave in what they would find a degraded state is disgusting to them as its typically disgusting for people to see others relish what they consider to be degrading or humiliating.

This obviously does not extend to lesbians so they don't experience the same visceral disgust towards lesbians.

And thats why, i would guess, lesbians don't get the same amount of crap on a personal level growing up in socially backwards areas, and they were more or less entirely ignored while gay men were being persecuted in older generations.


That said however, on a society wide scale, on the level of the social organization of patriarchal family relations and all of the social relations that follow from that, i think it neither makes sense for gay men to be more repressed, nor is it empirically true. If anything i'd suggest that empirically there is plenty of evidence to the contrary.

Gay men simply do a lot better in the social establishment and commercial hierarchies than lesbians. Many media and entertainment industries, including fashion, magazine publication and journalism, theatre, and to a lesser but significant extent television production, are almost dominated by gay men (both numerically and in terms of influence) and gay men are disproportionately well represented in many traditional professions and affluent circles. The same really isn't true for lesbians at least not in any obvious sense.

I think if actually thought about in detail, this disparity is implied in a number of visible areas. Consider, there are lots of gay male politicians, but can anyone think of even one lesbian politician? For that matter, can anyone think of a single lesbian celebrity who was known to be a lesbian before or during her rise to fame, rather then just stepping out of the closet years or decades after her position was secure? I really can't think of any, but i can think of lots and lots of gay celebrities (except of course those who are famous-for-being-related-to-someone-much-more-famous). The media and society just don't express a lot of interest in real lesbians the way they do with every other sexual orientation including female bisexuals.


Although i wouldn't want to portray this as a set theory, i would think that from a social control and organisation standpoint, lesbians are a lot more threatening to the establishment than gay men are. When women reject a patriarchal role as a mother, something that in many ways the establishment continues to equate with being a decent woman, its destabilizes patriarchal social organization a lot more then with men reject the tertiary role as fathers because female participation is a much more heavily constraining factor on reproduction and childrearing then male participation (for both social and biological reasons), and patriarchal institutions and capitalist states both have an interest in reproducing, training and socially enculturating a workforce. Yes, I know that lesbians reproduce too and obviously at a much higher rate than gay men, but its at a much lower rate then straight women, if only for the fact that they don't do it by mistake whereas many straight women do, and in any case they don't provide a family structure that recreates the patriarchal family and reinforces that mode of social organisation. Thats why the political anti-gay lobby (vs. the individual homophobes) are obsessed with the notion that "a child needs both a mother and a father". You know, if a little girl doesn't see her daddy making money while her mommy takes care of her and her 1.2 siblings and stays out of trouble, she might get the idea that she doesn't want to do that either. (which isn't necessarily that bad for capitalism as long as she still has kids, but it is bad for patriarchal institutions like the church, extended family networks, suburban social structures, etc).