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Young people who have learned about sex from watching porn have a treasure trove of sadly mistaken beliefs and misconceptions about sexuality.
If a group rests its beliefs (in the case of creationism) or its moral standpoint (in the case of gay rights) on a set of claims which cannot be borne out by the evidence, then it risks losing its beliefs, or sacrificing its moral standpoint, when the facts can no longer be denied.
Gay people — including those whose feelings of attraction are largely out of their control, as well as those who have some elbow room for how they self-identify — deserve to be treated with love and respect. The moral goal is clear. But if that moral goal must rest on a false or confused premise, then undue risk creeps in for defending it. Specifically, once the relevant facts become widely understood, the right-wing persecutors of gay men and women will be able to claim victory, and harness the data to their side. That’s the danger Cynthia Nixon was referring to when she spoke of ceding the terms of the debate to “the bigots.”
It is precisely the importance of what is at stake for “gay rights” (which I see as being indistinguishable from individual rights) that compels me to argue for firmer ground on this issue.
“My recent comments in The New York Times were about me and my personal story of being gay. I believe we all have different ways we came to the gay community and we can’t and shouldn’t be pigeon-holed into one cultural narrative which can be uninclusive and disempowering. However, to the extent that anyone wishes to interpret my words in a strictly legal context I would like to clarify:
“While I don’t often use the word, the technically precise term for my orientation is bisexual. I believe bisexuality is not a choice, it is a fact. What I have ‘chosen’ is to be in a gay relationship.
“As I said in the Times and will say again here, I do, however, believe that most members of our community — as well as the majority of heterosexuals — cannot and do not choose the gender of the persons with whom they seek to have intimate relationships because, unlike me, they are only attracted to one sex.
“Our community is not a monolith, thank goodness, any more than America itself is. I look forward to and will continue to work toward the day when America recognizes all of us as full and equal citizens.”
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The Advocate online magazine illustrated their update with a photo of Nixon bald, when she had cancer treatment. I can’t help but feel they were aiming to humiliate her just a little.
“I gave a speech recently, an empowerment speech to a gay audience, and it included the line ‘I’ve been straight and I’ve been gay, and gay is better.’ And they tried to get me to change it, because they said it implies that homosexuality can be a choice. And for me, it is a choice. I understand that for many people it’s not, but for me it’s a choice, and you don’t get to define my gayness for me. A certain section of our community is very concerned that it not be seen as a choice, because if it’s a choice, then we could opt out. I say it doesn’t matter if we flew here or we swam here, it matters that we are here and we are one group and let us stop trying to make a litmus test for who is considered gay and who is not.” Her face was red and her arms were waving. “As you can tell,” she said, “I am very annoyed about this issue. Why can’t it be a choice? Why is that any less legitimate? It seems we’re just ceding this point to bigots who are demanding it, and I don’t think that they should define the terms of the debate. I also feel like people think I was walking around in a cloud and didn’t realize I was gay, which I find really offensive. I find it offensive to me, but I also find it offensive to all the men I’ve been out with.”
as Americans “dramatize” teen sexuality into an opera of raging hormones and dueling sexes – boys who want to “get laid” and emotionally vulnerable girls – their kids are forced to sneak around. Dutch parents, meanwhile, have “normalized” the issue: They accept that their kids are having sex and might actually be doing it in loving relationships.
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Dutch teenagers are far less likely to become pregnant or contract an STD, and far more likely to use contraception than their American counterparts.
MS: I asked because I wondered if your homosexuality is still ‘active’. I know a male to female transsexual who is now finding herself attracted to other women…
Dana: [Dana sits up suddenly shaking her head and banging her hands on the bedcover] . This is very crazy, this kind of thing! I DON’T UNDERSTAND IT! I don’t like it. But… [she catches herself] I respect it because it’s their own life. .. but it doesn’t sound logical to me! Maybe their changing sex was a mistake. You go through all this trouble to have relationships with men, and then you want to have relationships with WOMEN?
MS: But perhaps it isn’t so illogical. After all, they’re simply remaining attracted to the same sex.
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most transsexuals are too preoccupied with the way they look. They think, Why doesn’t he love me? I’ll have my nose fixed and then he’ll love me! Or I’ll buy a Versace dress. Then he’ll be at my feet.’ They don’t understand that you have to work very hard on your personality.
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You can’t be 100% happy all the time. You have to be unhappy sometimes to appreciate being happy.
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Men may think about sex more often than women do, but a new study suggests that men also think about other biological needs, such as eating and sleep, more frequently than women do, as well.
And the research discredits the persistent stereotype that men think about sex every seven seconds, which would amount to more than 8,000 thoughts about sex in 16 waking hours. In the study, the median number of young men's thought about sex stood at almost 19 times per day. Young women in the study reported a median of nearly 10 thoughts about sex per day.
As a group, the men also thought about food almost 18 times per day and sleep almost 11 times per day, compared to women's median number of thoughts about eating and sleep, at nearly 15 times and about 8 1/2 times, respectively.
The bishops are struggling to reclaim the role they played in the 1980s and into the ’90s as a nationally recognized voice on the moral dimension of public policy issues like economic inequality, workers’ rights, immigration and nuclear weapons proliferation. Since then, however, they have reordered their priorities, with abortion and homosexuality eclipsing poverty and economic injustice.
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Some liberal Catholic commentators have criticized the bishops’ priorities, saying they are playing into the culture wars. John Gehring, Catholic outreach coordinator with Faith in Public Life, a liberal religious advocacy group in Washington, said, “The bishops speak in hushed tones when it comes to poverty and economic justice issues, and use a big megaphone when it comes to abortion and religious liberty issues.”
Branding Christians and traditionalists ‘bigots’ for being Christians and traditionalists and thus none too keen to fundamentally revise the definition of marriage is a highly unattractive exercise in liberal self-righteousness that makes Miss America look quite sophisticated. Not to mention sounding a lot like pots and kettles rattling. It’s faintly absurd to have to even say this, but it isn’t bigoted to believe that marriage is between a man and a woman. It’s just being conventional. And after all, marriage itself is convention and tradition tied up in a big red bow and covered in confetti and sprinkled with Holy Water. Which is exactly why lesbians and gays should have nothing to do with it.
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Miss California, a practising Christian, was last week denounced by Miss America judge Perez Hilton on his blog as ‘a dumb bitch’ and unworthy of the Miss America crown because she gave the ‘wrong’ answer to his chippy question about gay marriage. Like most Americans – including the current Democratic President of the United States – she believes that marriage is ‘between a man and a woman’. Boo! Hiss! Rip her to shreds!
It wasn’t just the famously bitchy gay gossip-monger Hilton casting stones, however. For honestly and somewhat courageously answering his question Miss California was roundly condemned as a ‘bigot’ by hosts of gay and liberal bloggers, and was even denounced by the directors of the Miss California pageant who declared themselves ‘saddened’ by her views and that they had no place in the ‘Miss California family’, whatever that is. Most now agree with Hilton’s gloating claim that her answer cost her the crown.
Candidate Obama expressed the exact same view during the Presidential Election: “I believe that marriage is the union between a man and a woman. Now, for me as a Christian, it’s also a sacred union. You know, God’s in the mix.” Instead of being scorned as a bigot and a dumb bitch, Obama was handed the Mr America crown by liberals and probably most gay voters. But I suppose that being President of the United States is a rather less important title than Miss America.
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gay marriage zealots, many of whom admit that they themselves don’t wish to get married, insist on characterising civil unions as ‘second class’, ‘social apartheid’ or ‘riding at the back of the bus’. I’d like to think it was merely a ploy to make fully-recognised civil unions more achievable, but many really seem to believe their own shrill propaganda. Worse, they’ve made even more of a fetish of the word ‘marriage’ than the religious right they rail against.
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In an unusual scientific about-face, researchers at Northwestern University have found evidence that at least some men who identify themselves as bisexual are, in fact, sexually aroused by both women and men.
‘scientific’ findings very kindly allow men who like cock and pussy to actually exist.
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The fact that women report more choice than men regarding sexual orientation (Savin- Williams, 1990; Whisman, 1996; see also Rosenbluth, 1997, on voluntary heterosexuality) runs directly counter to the view that men have all the choices and women are imprisoned by rigid social factors. Likewise, the evidence about women who in midlife start having sex with other women while still enjoying sex with men suggests plasticity rather than coercion"
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"The patriarchal oppression theory particularly invokes the so-called double standard, under which certain acts are more permissible for men than for women. This view has difficulty explaining many of the modern findings, however, because the double standard has been difficult to document in modern research and many researchers have concluded that it has disappeared or is disappearing, especially among women (DeLamater & MacCorquodale, 1979; Sprecher, 1989; Sprecher & Hatfield, 1996; cf. Robinson et al., 1991)... For example, T. Smith (1994) reports that national (Roper) polls found only a small minority endorsing a double standard in 1959 (8%) and even 1937 (7%)"
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"Newborn sheep and goats were exchanged, so that the sheep were raised by goats and vice versa. After they reached adulthood, they were reunited with then: biological species, and their mating preferences were observed. Consistent with the hypothesis of female erotic plasticity, the adult females were willing to mate with either species. The males, in contrast, preferred only their adoptive species and refused to mate with their biological conspecifics, even after living exclusively with their own kind for 3 years. These results suggest that male sexual inclinations are based on a process of sexual imprinting that occurs early in life and then remains inflexible, whereas female sexual inclinations can continue to change in adulthood"
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What makes the case of Patrick and Thomas so fascinating is that it calls into question both of the dominant theories in the long-running debate over what makes people gay: nature or nurture, genes or learned behavior. As identical twins, Patrick and Thomas began as genetic clones. From the moment they came out of their mother's womb, their environment was about as close to identical as possible - being fed, changed, and plopped into their car seats the same way, having similar relationships with the same nurturing father and mother. Yet before either boy could talk, one showed highly feminine traits while the other appeared to be "all boy," as the moms at the playgrounds say with apologetic shrugs.
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in 1991, a neuroscientist in San Diego named Simon LeVay told the world he had found a key difference between the brains of homosexual and heterosexual men he studied. LeVay showed that a tiny clump of neurons of the anterior hypothalamus - which is believed to control sexual behavior - was, on average, more than twice the size in heterosexual men as in homosexual men. LeVay's findings did not speak directly to the nature-vs.-nurture debate - the clumps could, theoretically, have changed size because of homosexual behavior. But that seemed unlikely, and the study ended up jump-starting the effort to prove a biological basis for homosexuality.
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I do believe that people who identify as male tend to (not all, but many if not most) look at different things for pleasure (and with different intentions) than people who identify as female. I went to the presentation of http://pornresearch.org/ first findings and it did support my understanding that, at least culturally, there tends to be a different response and intention around the consumption of pornography between those two genders. I don’t believe in a gender binary, I believe in a spectrum (maybe even more complicated than that, but spectrum works for now) or a bell curve. I’ve said that a lot, but you do tend to ignore it’
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regardless of whether or not the theory fits that, people *are* buying it more and more, which would suggest there is a niche there that people don’t feel is being met elsewhere. How do you account for that?
The world I live in, especially now, in Oakland, California, is definitely dominated by half-naked women. It’s on our TV screens (Jersey Shore, Real Housewives, Kardashians, America’s Next Top Model, Project Runway, Sopranos reruns, Mad Men- I think True Blood is really the one equal opportunity objectifier). It’s in our magazines and newspapers- looking in the back pages there’s maybe 1 ad with a male for every 20 with females. It’s on book covers at the publisher I work for. It’s in the popup ads my computer blocks. I’d be happy to do a photojournal for a week to show what I mean, if you need that. There’s the occasional sexualized Black male body, say, for an album release, where they look tough and angry- female album covers show them being available and seductive. Sure, there’s Bieber, and for every Bieber there’s a Miley, Jasmine, Taylor, Brittney, Christina, Jessica, etc.
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almost all of the time, the camera is on the woman’s body, leaving a disembodied dick plowing into her. Male attractiveness in “heterosexual” porn isn’t seen as that important (starting to among some producers, mostly female ones, like Anna Span) but female attractiveness is compulsory. If, as a woman, you are not stereotypically attractive (slender, white, blonde, mildly or not tattooed, femme), you are far more likely to be humiliated, insulted, and treated roughly.
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A poll for the think-tank Demos found that fewer than 1 in 4 British Muslims disagreed with the statement “I am proud of how Britain treats gay people”. Almost half (47%) agreed with the statement.
They were also more likely to strongly agree with this statement than secular Britons (15% compared to 8%).
The poll marks a sharp contrast to findings by Gallup in 2009 that 0% of British Muslims were tolerant towards homosexuality. But the two results are not contradictory: Muslims can agree that Islam does not tolerate homosexuality, while celebrating gay rights enshrined in the law.
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Here is the break-down
The poll also found that:
· Over 4 in 5 British Muslims say they are ‘proud to be a British citizen’
· Only 1 in 5 British Muslims are not proud of ‘Britain’s role in the world’
· Two-thirds of British Muslims say they are ‘proud of British culture’
· British Muslims were more positive about Britain’s future than secularists or Anglicans
women can better judge whether a man is straight as they approach peak ovulation — or are in a romantic mood.
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1. Pink Dot is highly commercialised.
It appears to be organised by a well-oiled machinery, with merchandising and all that. This does not appear to invoke romantic imaginings of the business of change that is LGBT activism (or at least how we expect it to be). -
2. Pink Dot does not represent the victims of homophobia.
It appears to be too "happy" with its celebratory and carnivalesque atmosphere. There are youths who are abused, beaten or thrown out of their homes by people who do not understand them. Pink Dot does not reach out to these victims of homophobia (or biphobia, transphobia, etc.) And what does Pink Dot do about LGBT people who lose their jobs or cannot find work because you-know-why/what? ... Add in more questions of similar nature... - 8 more annotation(s)...
In four different groups of students across four semesters, 25 of 74 women (33 percent) and 24 out of 56 men (42 percent) reported experiencing some degree of same-sex feeling or had an actual sexual experience with someone of the same sex (after the age of 16). Virtually all of them were aware that their same-sex feelings were disapproved of by society. Some women had shared these feelings with female friends or even boyfriends, but none of the men had told anyone about them except me. By all outward appearances, all the men fell into the normal range of what is socially considered “masculine.” Their public identification was heterosexual, while a few—privately to me—called themselves bisexual.
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he said, “Everybody, regardless of gender, has looked at a close friend of the same sex with a little more than love, respect, and admiration.” But he saw no way to act on or reveal such feelings without being labeled and rejected as “homosexual.”
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Jason had recently been in a threesome with a woman and a male friend. Although nothing directly happened between him and his male friend, he felt emotionally close to him and felt a desire for something more. Jason did not know how to make this happen and asked himself, “Why I can’t take away the girl and just have something with the guy?”
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I have recently changed my twitter handle from @quietriot_girl to @quietriot_boy
I did it in a playful moment, in part, but also as a response to some of the most hateful misandrist bile I have seen in a long time, from, yes, you guessed it, feminist bloggers. Not just misandrist but also transphobic, nasty, nasty stuff. That in my mind boils down to the ‘eugenics’ element in ‘radical feminism’.
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my own gender identity is something I put into question quite regularly. I am ‘Quiet Riot Girl’ but what that means is often unclear to me. I am a ‘woman’, but I don’t feel much kinship with many women, just because of our shared gender and sex identity, particularly not feminist women, which are the ones from which I came. It’s like being in the sisterhood without any sisters.
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So @quietriot_boy goes a bit deeper than an internet nickname or a political statement against radfems who often ‘accuse’ me of being a man anyway. I sometimes wish I was a boy. I sometimes think I am one. The main long sexual/romantic relationship I had was with a boy who would probably have loved and desired me even if I had have been a boy. And that makes me happy and sad simultaneously.
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