Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Sy Borg]

Is this through all of the northern hemisphere? In Oz we have Mardi Gras late Feb. These days I avoid crowds like the plague, so it's been a long time since I've seen a parade.

I think everyone who has Mardi Gras has it on a Tuesday in February. Don't they have a big Pride festival in Sydney? I'm sure that's been discussed here before at some time.

It's a shame that there has to be a "pride month", given that the way one is born is no cause for pride, it just is.

That's always the curious thing about these kinds of celebrations. Mother's Day was mentioned earlier in the topic. It's funny (because it's not true) to think that showing pride in the diversity of human sexuality at a particular time implies shame at other times, or that we hate our mothers for 364 days of the year. :D

Yep, Mardi Gras is the end of Feb.

It's just a reminder to gays not to "let the 'bustards' get you down". We cannot speak about such events without considering the cruel treatment that's routinely meted out to queer people.

With Mums, it's more a matter that 364 days of unstinting work is rewarded by a day of treats to keep her sweet so she continues churning it out :)

[Steve3007]

It's just a reminder to gays not to "let the 'bustards' get you down". We cannot speak about such events without considering the cruel treatment that's routinely meted out to queer people.

Yes. And to simply show people that they're not alone, as they undoubtedly would have thought in our society in times gone by, and still do in some.

I've been quite a big fan of the French TV drama "Call My Agent" ("Dix pour Cent" in French) and it has some male and female gay characters in it. It was interesting to see that they made versions of it for various different countries, but the Turkish version dropped the gay themes. I've worked with Turkish people and visited, and in many ways it's a modern liberal country, but it many ways not. There are still plenty of societies in this world where the leaders, at least, would falsely claim that homosexuality is a decedent western import and that none of their own citizens are gay. Of course, in any society, it's easily possible to arrange it such that nobody will ever admit to being gay. So the leaders can then declare "See? Nobody here is gay."

With Mums, it's more a matter that 364 days of unstinting work is rewarded by a day of treats to keep her sweet so she continues churning it out

Yes, so the dad and the kids can make a big OTT show of making her meals on that one day and then go back to normal straight afterwards!

[Sy Borg]

It's just a reminder to gays not to "let the 'bustards' get you down". We cannot speak about such events without considering the cruel treatment that's routinely meted out to queer people.

Yes. And to simply show people that they're not alone, as they undoubtedly would have thought in our society in times gone by, and still do in some.

I've been quite a big fan of the French TV drama "Call My Agent" ("Dix pour Cent" in French) and it has some male and female gay characters in it. It was interesting to see that they made versions of it for various different countries, but the Turkish version dropped the gay themes. I've worked with Turkish people and visited, and in many ways it's a modern liberal country, but it many ways not. There are still plenty of societies in this world where the leaders, at least, would falsely claim that homosexuality is a decedent western import and that none of their own citizens are gay. Of course, in any society, it's easily possible to arrange it such that nobody will ever admit to being gay. So the leaders can then declare "See? Nobody here is gay."

It's all very silly. You have zillions of apes. They are going to differ in all sorts of ways. In a sense, sexuality is trivial to the point of inanity, yet the mistreatment remains viscerally real. There will come a time when whatever humans become will look back and marvel at how base, small-minded and unnecessarily hostile humans of our time could be. Just as we marvel today at the barbarity and grossness of the Middle Ages and earlier times.

With Mums, it's more a matter that 364 days of unstinting work is rewarded by a day of treats to keep her sweet so she continues churning it out

Yes, so the dad and the kids can make a big OTT show of making her meals on that one day and then go back to normal straight afterwards!

Yup, it's a massive con, playing on perceived sentimentality of women. It seems to usually work too

[MAYA EL]

How on earth did you come up with that conclusion based off of what i have said?

Because you expressed the opinion that one "shouldn't" know the sexual preference of another person unless you want to "phuck" them, as you put it. Hasn't it occurred to you that it's simply an interesting subject for most people?

And i don't need to express my acceptance for a persons sexual preference in order to get to know them

No, you don't need to express any preferences for anything. I didn't say you did. I just said that talking to somebody is a good way to get to know them and that sexuality is an important part, but not the only part, of what we are. Do you disagree?

And you seem to think that not talking about a guy liking another man's penis shoved up his ass is some kind of negative thing?

Talking about sexuality doesn't have to be about that. Haven't you ever had a conversation with friends or family about any aspect of sex?

The bedroom is a private sacred place and that has been forgotten in today's society where by the time your 25 you have had sex with over 100 different people and obviously when you've dipped you. WIC in that many different places no duh it feels like something that everyone can talk about because it's not intimate special or unique .

The trouble is, you make these wild general assumptions about what other people - "today's society" - are doing. So you're clearly interested, but don't want to actually ask them. It seems you'd rather just speculate and fume about what you imagine this person called "today's society" to be doing. That, in my opinion, is not healthy.

Fun conversations about sex don't stop it from being a private and special thing. My partner, for example, when meeting for a glass of wine and a chat with her friends rarely has a conversation in which sex, in one way or another, doesn't come up. It's healthy and normal to talk about things that you're interested in and which are an important part of life. It's an excellent way to work through all of the anxieties around sex with people you trust. It's unhealthy to dictate that they "shouldn't" discuss them and then fume about the debauched lives you imagine other people to live. That's my view. As I said, you're entitled to yours.

Cookie cutter perspective as usual
Which is to be expected these days but hey like they say opinions are like ass wholes everyone's got one and some people like to shove their dick in other peoples "opinion" and really go "into" the topic over and over untill their brains blow. ( pun intended) and you could say that talking about why other people like to smell **** while hearing the brawny man moan really does help you to paint a better picture of that person because you'll know things that you would have never known had you not brought up things like the family priest father Mulcahy that didn't like bad boys or his uncle that took him camping back when he was 10 and that introduced him to the phenomena called pink sock

Things like it's probably best not to go on a hunting trip with said new friend unless your into that kind of thing and are actually wanting to risk more then one bear in your tent

Or not to eat corn because your not the only one that notices that corn doesn't digest
I mean the list is practically endless.

And this conversation is rather pointless to continue so have a great day .

[Sy Borg]

And you seem to think that not talking about a guy liking another man's penis shoved up his ass is some kind of negative thing?

Talking about sexuality doesn't have to be about that. Haven't you ever had a conversation with friends or family about any aspect of sex?

Yes, Maya's perspective is ridiculous and childish. Do we talk about straight couples in terms of the man shoving his penis in the woman's vagina?

[Steve3007]

and you could say that talking about why other people like to smell **** while hearing the brawny man moan really does help you to paint a better picture of that person because you'll know things that you would have never known had you not brought up things like the family priest father Mulcahy that didn't like bad boys or his uncle that took him camping back when he was 10 and that introduced him to the phenomena called pink sock

You have a vivid imagination.

[Steve3007]

Personally I've never had a conversation about sex which involved Father Mulcahy's pink sock, although you're free to talk about that (and about all the penises in anuses that you seem to be interested in) if that's your thing. As far as I recall, my last conversation about sex with anybody other than my other half was with an old school friend who was telling me that, for various reasons, his sex life with his girlfriend had reduced to virtually nothing. As I said, my experience of being 50-something is that most conversations with other 50-somethings, male or female, gay or straight, are on that same general theme.

[Steve3007]

Yes, Maya's perspective is ridiculous and childish. Do we talk about straight couples in terms of the man shoving his penis in the woman's vagina?

It seems to me to be the kind of childish "Look! I said a rude word!" attitude that often seems to linger into adulthood in people who have only the combination of their own fertile imagination and tabloid-style "sex sells" journalism as their source material. Over 50 years after the publication of the book "Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask)" you'd think that it would have all but gone by now.

At my particular age, in my experience, you have to go back to my grandparents' generation (now deceased) to fully recapture that "never, ever talk directly about sex" attitude. But with regard to homosexuality, it's been a gradual process of working towards simple honesty. As recently as the late 80s, as I recall, it wasn't openly acknowledged that various obviously gay public figures like Boy George and Freddie Mercury were, in fact, gay. I remember my older sister fancied the guy with the moustache out of Frankie Goes To Hollywood, and was quite put out when she discovered he was gay. . Nowadays, looking back, I think "How could you not know? He had a moustache! What other clue did you need?"

[Sy Borg]

Yes, Maya's perspective is ridiculous and childish. Do we talk about straight couples in terms of the man shoving his penis in the woman's vagina?

It seems to me to be the kind of childish "Look! I said a rude word!" attitude that often seems to linger into adulthood in people who have only the combination of their own fertile imagination and tabloid-style "sex sells" journalism as their source material. Over 50 years after the publication of the book "Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask)" you'd think that it would have all but gone by now.

It's bizarre on another level, though. Sometimes we look at a couple and find it bizarre that they have sex. Not just two men or two women. Very large men with tiny women. Highly obese couples.

But this is ideally just a matter of curiosity but people like to judge. Judgement is an own goal that always reflects back on the judger, a dynamic that has been known for a very long time. Live by the sword, die by the sword. Hoist with his own petard. Ultimately, any judgements we make come back to haunt us in the form of self-recrimination. Cut everyone else a little slack to simply be who they are and you cut yourself that same slack.

At my particular age, in my experience, you have to go back to my grandparents' generation (now deceased) to fully recapture that "never, ever talk directly about sex" attitude. But with regard to homosexuality, it's been a gradual process of working towards simple honesty. As recently as the late 80s, as I recall, it wasn't openly acknowledged that various obviously gay public figures like Boy George and Freddie Mercury were, in fact, gay. I remember my older sister fancied the guy with the moustache out of Frankie Goes To Hollywood, and was quite put out when she discovered he was gay. . Nowadays, looking back, I think "How could you not know? He had a moustache! What other clue did you need?"

Yes, I remember being shocked to find out that Liberace was gay. Mum was obsessed, maybe because he was so opposite to Dad.

And consider that no one spoke of politics or religion either. On the surface, that seems like a very good idea, but if you don't allow in the light of openness, toxic dynamics fester under the cover of darkness. Yet a scab that keeps being picked will be slow to heal. (Help! I'm drowning in hoary old truisms!). I suppose I'd advocate a balance between openness and empathy when talking about sex, religion or politics.

[Steve3007]

It's bizarre on another level, though. Sometimes we look at a couple and find it bizarre that they have sex. Not just two men or two women. Very large men with tiny women. Highly obese couples.

But this is ideally just a matter of curiosity but people like to judge...

Yes, perhaps one reason why we do what you've described here is that, even now, we're so often presented with media images of sex only ever happening cleanly and effortlessly between two conventionally beautiful movie stars. The messy, awkward, fumbling, often funny sex between real people with real bodies in the real world is very rarely presented. And when we're doing it ourselves we (thankfully!) don't see it from the outside.

I think that rush-to-judgement has a long history, but it's exacerbated by the modern media world, combined with social media. More than ever, it seems, "celebrities" exist for the sole purpose of being exemplars of extreme good and extreme bad, a bit like modern versions of the old Greek/Roman gods. We lift them up as saints for the purpose of bringing them crashing down as monsters. Social media allows that status to be extended much more widely. To paraphrase Andy Warhol: In this social media future, everyone is vilified for 15 minutes.

...Judgement is an own goal that always reflects back on the judger, a dynamic that has been known for a very long time. Live by the sword, die by the sword. Hoist with his own petard. Ultimately, any judgements we make come back to haunt us in the form of self-recrimination. Cut everyone else a little slack to simply be who they are and you cut yourself that same slack.

Yes, ultimately it just leads to self-judgement.

Yes, I remember being shocked to find out that Liberace was gay. Mum was obsessed, maybe because he was so opposite to Dad.

. I think there was a whole generation of people who were shocked to discover that Liberace was gay. Phillip Larkin famously wrote:

"Sexual intercourse began
In nineteen sixty-three
(which was rather late for me) -
Between the end of the "Chatterley" ban
And the Beatles' first LP."

The same principle applied to homosexuality, but went on for longer. People were "camp" or "colourful" or "flamboyant", but nobody was gay. On the plus side, it resulted in whole genres of humour that relied on innuendo and double entendre which are more difficult to do now. It's amazing how much they could get away with when put in the form of innuendo.

And consider that no one spoke of politics or religion either. On the surface, that seems like a very good idea, but if you don't allow in the light of openness, toxic dynamics fester under the cover of darkness. Yet a scab that keeps being picked will be slow to heal. (Help! I'm drowning in hoary old truisms!). I suppose I'd advocate a balance between openness and empathy when talking about sex, religion or politics.

Yes, it's a cliché because it's true that light and openness is, generally, healthy. The loss of some innuendo based humour is probably a price worth paying for that.

[MAYA EL]

And you seem to think that not talking about a guy liking another man's penis shoved up his ass is some kind of negative thing?

Talking about sexuality doesn't have to be about that. Haven't you ever had a conversation with friends or family about any aspect of sex?

Yes, Maya's perspective is ridiculous and childish. Do we talk about straight couples in terms of the man shoving his penis in the woman's vagina?

Im sure people do however i don't participate in said conversations because im mature and have no need to talk about dicks and balls and bowling ball halls

And even still it's at least a conversation on something more natural and not rooted in a neurotic trauma or learned behavior from someone else that most likely has a neurotic trauma .

[MAYA EL]

Yes, Maya's perspective is ridiculous and childish. Do we talk about straight couples in terms of the man shoving his penis in the woman's vagina?

It seems to me to be the kind of childish "Look! I said a rude word!" attitude that often seems to linger into adulthood in people who have only the combination of their own fertile imagination and tabloid-style "sex sells" journalism as their source material. Over 50 years after the publication of the book "Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask)" you'd think that it would have all but gone by now.

At my particular age, in my experience, you have to go back to my grandparents' generation (now deceased) to fully recapture that "never, ever talk directly about sex" attitude. But with regard to homosexuality, it's been a gradual process of working towards simple honesty. As recently as the late 80s, as I recall, it wasn't openly acknowledged that various obviously gay public figures like Boy George and Freddie Mercury were, in fact, gay. I remember my older sister fancied the guy with the moustache out of Frankie Goes To Hollywood, and was quite put out when she discovered he was gay. . Nowadays, looking back, I think "How could you not know? He had a moustache! What other clue did you need?"

I was trying to come across in a uncomfortable manner to try to prove a point.

It wasn't anything that's not true I just didn't sugar coat it like people usually do .

[Sy Borg]

And you seem to think that not talking about a guy liking another man's penis shoved up his ass is some kind of negative thing?

Talking about sexuality doesn't have to be about that. Haven't you ever had a conversation with friends or family about any aspect of sex?

Yes, Maya's perspective is ridiculous and childish. Do we talk about straight couples in terms of the man shoving his penis in the woman's vagina?

Im sure people do however i don't participate in said conversations because im mature and have no need to talk about dicks and balls and bowling ball halls

And even still it's at least a conversation on something more natural and not rooted in a neurotic trauma or learned behavior from someone else that most likely has a neurotic trauma.

Gee, that "neurotic trauma" seems to be persistent! It's lasted through all of human history in all societies, not to mention numerous mammals and other animals.

This is known as "natural variation". Do you accept human diversity or do you believe that all people must be completely identical and retain total conformity in certain areas of life? Are there other areas of life, other than crime, where you believe that all people must be the same? Or is it just sexuality? If it is just sexuality, that is more reflective of your issues than anyone else's.

[Steve3007]

It wasn't anything that's not true I just didn't sugar coat it like people usually do .

Your central point, which kicked off our conversation, was neither true nor false because it wasn't a factual claim. It was a statement of your view as to what should and should not happen. i.e. it was an "ought", not an "is". Here it is again:

I shouldn't know your sexual preference unless im looking for a person to phuck and if im not looking to phuck then we shouldn't ever talk about your sex preference

I disagreed with that because, in my view, for reasons I've given, it's an unhealthy position to take. You then went on to speculate that all conversations about sex are about the details of a particular sexual act. Obviously not true, if you've ever actually had a conversation about it. You also went on to bemoan the modern world in which you think everybody has loads of sex with loads of people. Again, as I've said, obviously not true if you talk honestly and openly to people rather than just furiously speculating and reading the headlines of publications whose income depends on titillation.

[MAYA EL]

And you seem to think that not talking about a guy liking another man's penis shoved up his ass is some kind of negative thing?

Yes, Maya's perspective is ridiculous and childish. Do we talk about straight couples in terms of the man shoving his penis in the woman's vagina?

Im sure people do however i don't participate in said conversations because im mature and have no need to talk about dicks and balls and bowling ball halls

And even still it's at least a conversation on something more natural and not rooted in a neurotic trauma or learned behavior from someone else that most likely has a neurotic trauma.

Gee, that "neurotic trauma" seems to be persistent! It's lasted through all of human history in all societies, not to mention numerous mammals and other animals.

This is known as "natural variation". Do you accept human diversity or do you believe that all people must be completely identical and retain total conformity in certain areas of life? Are there other areas of life, other than crime, where you believe that all people must be the same? Or is it just sexuality? If it is just sexuality, that is more reflective of your issues than anyone else's.

No that is a false dilemma fallacy .