When you talk orientation, the fundamentalists have already won
I spent some time reading LJ yesterday, and one comment was that most LJ posts aren't interesting. I wondered, then, what would make a post interesting.
Which led me to think about what people were looking for when they said they want "something different".
Now, "something different" is a key phrase for 'close to what I think, but not very different'. I know when I was in a brainstorming session where 'nothing was off limits'... ok first of, it's work, so that makes a lot of stuff 'off limits'. To make a point, I asked a question about a piece of technology which the company had spent millions of dollars implementing, and asking if it could be replaced. The answer was, of course, no. Which meant that there were things that were off limits, even within the context of work. Of course, it was pretty obvious, but I made my point. For whatever that was worth.
zoethe wrote a great post about how the Internet allows you to be selective about who you talk to. Which leads to this danger of constantly seeking out people just like yourself and from that you'd get this feeling of "everyone thinks like me" when, in fact, you are part of a small minority, but you never talk to anyone different... I mean really different. When you finally do, there's this whole problem that you expect everyone to think like you do (or close), and that's just not the case.
My friends refers to it as "the horrified neighbors". That is, there are some things you don't discuss with your neighbors because they'd probably be horrified. Yet with the Internet, it's possible to find a like-minded community where... whatever you like will be happily discussed by like minded individuals. Maybe sometimes, though, the horrified neighbors are right. Maybe sometimes, they won't actually be horrified.
In the same way, heavy metal fans will happily carry on for hours about the differences between Metallica versus Iron Maiden versus Van Halen, to most people it's just Heavy Metal music. I'm the same way about Blues music. People have been trying for years to get me to appreciate the difference between different artists, and it's all just Blues music to me. I recognize blues guitar, but I can't tell what's good or bad. It all sounds the same to me. My usual response to Blues is, "yes, that's certainly blues guitar, please put something else on."
I, too, know a friend who is into the whole d/s thing, and swings both ways... so to speak. I would think if you preferred one side, the other wouldn't really speak to you, but the other side is "different" enough to be interesting. People who are varying degrees of asexual, on the other hand, are horrifying. To someone who has a sexual lifestyle, being asexual is different in a bad way.
The first conception for this post came from little_details in a post asking how homosexuals were received in medieval france. One reply was that essentially, there was no such thing as 'homosexuality'. Certainly there wasn't a lot of tolerance (except if you were rich) because there were some pretty strict rules against sodomy and the like, but 'homosexuality' is a modern concept.
I thought about that.
I remember some violent arguements with some friends about a "gay friendly" guild in World of Warcraft. Blizzard pointed out that this was a game children played and they didn't want discussions of sex in game and banned the gay friendly guild (or something). The violent arguement resulted from me agreeing with Blizzard. I still do. I don't see how a guild that's organized around a sexual orientation is anything but about sex. It is, after all, called sexual orientation. I don't want to deal with that in game. Sex (more importantly, your sexual preferences) is something you discuss with potential partners. Which in a typical online game includes... no one. For slightly large values of 'no one'. I'm certainly not going to announce my preference in large letters over my head.
Yesterday, I saw a post in ask_a_cop where someone said they were a MTF transsexual, detailed where they were in the sex change process, and then asked a question about an encounter with a partner and if that was potentially illegal (domestic violence specifically). Someone finally pointed out the elephant in the room. That is, why is you being a transsexual at all relevant to making stupid relationship choices (though they were a lot more diplomatic about it than that).
Which is where the whole subject line comes from. When you talk about your sexual orientation, you're talking about what sort of sex you like. While there may be nuances to it, when you talk to like minded individuals, and I'm sure the difference between a bear and a drag queen is terribly important to people close to those things... everyone else just thinks you're gay.
And you've let the fundamentalists pry into what you and your consenting adult partners do in the bedroom by announcing it to the world. Which is what they want. No one, not Jimmy Swaggert, not Bill Clinton, will get universal acceptance for what they like to do in private. So by opening up the discussion, you're opening up the way to be ostracized for what you do in private.
And maybe I'm falling into the trap of looking at it from the puritanical perspective that those of us in the states have. Actually, I probably am. Nevertheless.
Which led me to think about what people were looking for when they said they want "something different".
Now, "something different" is a key phrase for 'close to what I think, but not very different'. I know when I was in a brainstorming session where 'nothing was off limits'... ok first of, it's work, so that makes a lot of stuff 'off limits'. To make a point, I asked a question about a piece of technology which the company had spent millions of dollars implementing, and asking if it could be replaced. The answer was, of course, no. Which meant that there were things that were off limits, even within the context of work. Of course, it was pretty obvious, but I made my point. For whatever that was worth.
zoethe wrote a great post about how the Internet allows you to be selective about who you talk to. Which leads to this danger of constantly seeking out people just like yourself and from that you'd get this feeling of "everyone thinks like me" when, in fact, you are part of a small minority, but you never talk to anyone different... I mean really different. When you finally do, there's this whole problem that you expect everyone to think like you do (or close), and that's just not the case.
My friends refers to it as "the horrified neighbors". That is, there are some things you don't discuss with your neighbors because they'd probably be horrified. Yet with the Internet, it's possible to find a like-minded community where... whatever you like will be happily discussed by like minded individuals. Maybe sometimes, though, the horrified neighbors are right. Maybe sometimes, they won't actually be horrified.
In the same way, heavy metal fans will happily carry on for hours about the differences between Metallica versus Iron Maiden versus Van Halen, to most people it's just Heavy Metal music. I'm the same way about Blues music. People have been trying for years to get me to appreciate the difference between different artists, and it's all just Blues music to me. I recognize blues guitar, but I can't tell what's good or bad. It all sounds the same to me. My usual response to Blues is, "yes, that's certainly blues guitar, please put something else on."
I, too, know a friend who is into the whole d/s thing, and swings both ways... so to speak. I would think if you preferred one side, the other wouldn't really speak to you, but the other side is "different" enough to be interesting. People who are varying degrees of asexual, on the other hand, are horrifying. To someone who has a sexual lifestyle, being asexual is different in a bad way.
The first conception for this post came from little_details in a post asking how homosexuals were received in medieval france. One reply was that essentially, there was no such thing as 'homosexuality'. Certainly there wasn't a lot of tolerance (except if you were rich) because there were some pretty strict rules against sodomy and the like, but 'homosexuality' is a modern concept.
I thought about that.
I remember some violent arguements with some friends about a "gay friendly" guild in World of Warcraft. Blizzard pointed out that this was a game children played and they didn't want discussions of sex in game and banned the gay friendly guild (or something). The violent arguement resulted from me agreeing with Blizzard. I still do. I don't see how a guild that's organized around a sexual orientation is anything but about sex. It is, after all, called sexual orientation. I don't want to deal with that in game. Sex (more importantly, your sexual preferences) is something you discuss with potential partners. Which in a typical online game includes... no one. For slightly large values of 'no one'. I'm certainly not going to announce my preference in large letters over my head.
Yesterday, I saw a post in ask_a_cop where someone said they were a MTF transsexual, detailed where they were in the sex change process, and then asked a question about an encounter with a partner and if that was potentially illegal (domestic violence specifically). Someone finally pointed out the elephant in the room. That is, why is you being a transsexual at all relevant to making stupid relationship choices (though they were a lot more diplomatic about it than that).
Which is where the whole subject line comes from. When you talk about your sexual orientation, you're talking about what sort of sex you like. While there may be nuances to it, when you talk to like minded individuals, and I'm sure the difference between a bear and a drag queen is terribly important to people close to those things... everyone else just thinks you're gay.
And you've let the fundamentalists pry into what you and your consenting adult partners do in the bedroom by announcing it to the world. Which is what they want. No one, not Jimmy Swaggert, not Bill Clinton, will get universal acceptance for what they like to do in private. So by opening up the discussion, you're opening up the way to be ostracized for what you do in private.
And maybe I'm falling into the trap of looking at it from the puritanical perspective that those of us in the states have. Actually, I probably am. Nevertheless.