james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
james_davis_nicoll ([personal profile] james_davis_nicoll) wrote2012-04-24 11:25 am

Really?

"leftist SF critic James Nicoll"? Leftist?

[identity profile] rachel-swirsky.livejournal.com 2012-04-24 05:50 pm (UTC)(link)
This is also the sometimes-revealing attitude toward homosexuality. "Well, of course everyone *wants* to have gay sex, better not tell them it's a possibility--much less a non-stigmatized one!--or they'll all romp off and do it, because who wants to deal with the icky opposite sex if they have a choice?"

[identity profile] eyelessgame.livejournal.com 2012-04-24 06:01 pm (UTC)(link)
In my less-intersectionally-aware moments, I am halfway convinced that every single person who says "homosexuality is a choice" is bisexual. How otherwise could they believe it?

[identity profile] viktor-haag.livejournal.com 2012-04-24 06:04 pm (UTC)(link)
They may desperately want to believe it because to think otherwise might have (to them) completely monstrous implications. I'm not sure that's the same as them being bisexual.

[identity profile] rachel-swirsky.livejournal.com 2012-04-24 06:04 pm (UTC)(link)
Yeah, it's obviously not true of everyone.

But I've definitely met people--usually female?--who are clearly bi, or probably even gay, and who are very policing of their daughters consequently because they think it's normal.

It stands out to me because as a kid I was normally a parent-pleaser, but these people were very wary of me, even tho I was nominally straight.

[identity profile] lederhosen.livejournal.com 2012-04-25 03:53 am (UTC)(link)
A few days back I read a bio of Bob Brown (Australian politician who's just resigned leadership of the Australian Greens). It mentioned that he'd spent years going through electroshock 'therapy' trying to cure himself of homosexuality, and several times considered suicide before a counsellor finally told him that maybe he'd be better coming to terms with it.

Then yesterday I saw somebody commenting that he wasn't fit to represent people because his "lifestyle choices" meant he'd never know what it's like to have a family.

...I am not a violent man - and nor is Brown - but comments like that make me want to talk to these people about their "choice to be punched in the face".

[identity profile] scott-sanford.livejournal.com 2012-04-25 06:03 am (UTC)(link)
Isn't that the only logical conclusion? After all, if you only have one option, there's no choice...