-Caveat Lector-
A person on this list who had run out of posts for the day responded
privately to something I said on the subject a day or two ago. I think
some of what I said in private is worth repeating in public here. I’m
not setting up a straw man here. This exchange really happened. I’m just
protecting the privacy of the person, as I’d do for any of you. I never
reveal my sources.
But I think the rest of you also might be interested in what I said. I
hope so, anywayy. Some of you really, really need to hear it from
somebody.
So here’s an excerpt:
*******************
This person wanted to know why “they emphasize their sexuality to the
exclusion of everything else”
So I said:
I’m not sure who you mean here by “they.” If you mean individuals that
you know personally, you should ask them, not me. If you’re talking
about images in the media, you should be aware that the media distorts
reality for economic reasons. There is a vast gulf between what we see
on TV and real life.
Some of them refuse hide who they are, I say good for them. Think of it
as ethnic pride. Not all Gay people partake in Gay culture, but those
who do, and show it off in public, are no different that African
Americans who wear dashikis during Kwaanza or Irish Americans who wear
green on St. Patrick’s day. The desire to display pride in who your
People are is a natural part of the human condition. Everybody does it.
People define who “their People” are differently, that’s all. To some
it’s an ethnic thing, To others, it all about which language they speak.
To some it’s a matter of nationality. To some it’s sexual orientation.
Keep in mind, though, that not all Gay people partake in Gay culture.
The majority are “passing.” You yourself almost undoubtedly have Gay
friends and don’t know it.
Let me tell you a little something about passing. As you’ve probably
guessed by now, nessie isn’t my real name. My real name is a fairly
generic Irish name. There are even a couple famous people who share it.
It used to be preceded by “O’” but when my family came here in the last
century, they dropped the “O’’’ because that was the best way to get a
decent job. So I come from a long of passers. I know what I’m talking
about. Passing is as American as sleeping on Indian graves.
I have a pretty good friend who’s bisexual. He says it’s like being a
Black Puerto Rican. As long as you shut up, nobody knows who you really
are. When he told me that, I suddenly understood. It’s all about
choosing to pass or not to pass. Most people are lazy, They take one
look at you and assume they know who and what you are. They never
bother to actually find out. It’s too much effort. If a Gay person
doesn’t want you to know, you don’t know. And they are everywhere.
Everybody who has more than a handful of friends had Gay friends,
whether they know it or not. If they don’t know it, it’s their own
fault.
Except for Jews and Africans, nobody but Gays have caught more flak here
for being who they are than the Irish. But eventually, people got used
to the idea that we might act a bit strange about some things but we’re
damn handy to have on the team. So we don’t have to pass anymore. For
the most part, this has also happened to Jews and Italians. Now it’s
beginning to happen to Africans and Asians. It’s high time it happened
to Gays, too. Gay people have contributed to American culture and
prosperity to a degree far out of proportion to thier numbers. Give them
credit where credit is due.
As a life long American, I can’t speak for other cultures, but from what
I hear, it’s pretty much the same wherever. Gay people give more to
every society in which they live (i.e. every society on the planet) than
they get back. It’s time we gave them back a little. At the very least
we ought to show them the common courtesy that we show each other. They
have as much right to be proud of who they are as you do. Respect that
right. Don’t be so boorish as to insult them in public. And don’t insult
them in front of me. That’s some of my personal friends you’re
insulting. How’d you like it if I insulted your personal friends in
public?
There’s a lot of stuff on the tube right now about Gay life because it’s
Gay Pride week. It’s like the run up to St. Patrick’s Day. Every March
we see endless reruns of Finnian’s Rainbow, The Hanging Gale and the
Brothers McMullen. But nobody on CTRL bemoans the “pro-Irish bias” of
the media that week. What’s up with that?
************
This person also expressed concern that the media was exposing children
to sex before they were old enough to be responsible enough to handle
it.
As a parent myself, I feel qualified to address this. I’ve been fairly
promiscuous by American standards. I’m fairly promiscuous by American
standards. I’ve always had open relationships. I’m in one now. To me,
recreational sex is a past time. It’s what I do instead of take drugs,
collect stamps or surf. I never tried to hide my sex life from my kid. I
always treated sex very nonchalantly, like, it’s something grown ups do,
you'll get interested later. Kids understand that there are things kids
are interested in that adults aren’t, and vice versa.
As a kid, he was never much interested in my sex life, except in so far
as he liked some of my girlfriends better than others. That never seemed
to correlate with how well I got along with any of them. It had more to
do with how they related to him. This is pretty much how he treated all
my friends, whether I was sleeping with them or not. We always lived in
collective households, so he grew up with a de facto extended family,
lots of role models. It was not a sheltered life. The more sheltered
your childhood, the harder it will be for you to deal with the real
world when it comes along. Having to deal with the real world sooner or
later is an absolute certainty. I think it’s better if it doesn’t come
as a shock.
Why hide part of life from kids? They’re going going to find out anyway.
Kids shouldn’t have to worry about pregnancy and STDs and "getting
some" at this stage of their lives. And they don’t. But neither do they
need to be shielded from the fact that these things exist.
Dealing with sex, and dealing with knowing that it exists are quite
different things. Unfortunately, most of us live in cities. If you live
on a farm, your kids learn about sex the old fashioned way, by watching.
My kid learned about sex from having puppies born in his closet. We
didn’t own a TV till he was ten, so he didn’t get it there. I read aloud
to him and we listened to the radio together. When he asked me
questions, about anything at all, I gave him an honest answer. I never
lied to him and I never refused to tell him any truth. He’s 32. He’s
happy, healthy and well adjusted. He doesn’t do drugs or scam. He’s a
safe driver. He’s courteous. He’s articulate. He’s worked the same trade
since he was fifteen, and doing it after school. He kills time by
reading philosophy. His first computer was a Commie 64. He taught
himself Basic almost immediately. He could write code for money if he
wanted to, but it bores him. Why am I bragging? Because it’s at least
part my fault he turned out OK. His mother and I split up early. I’m the
one that raised him. I must have done something right. I think what it
was was my telling him the truth about everything I could, from the very
beginning. When he was two and asked “why?” all the time, if I knew, I
told him. If he didn’t understand, and he asked me again, I told him
again. Some stuff, of course, took years, but eventually he got it, if
not from me, from somebody. The part he got from me was the truth. I
don’t lie to my kid. I tell the truth. That’s how I do it.
That doesn’t mean that’s how everybody should do it.
We must never forget that there is no one best way to raise kids. What’s
best for society is if people raise kids in a variety of ways. That way,
they grow up to be a variety of different kinds of adults. To be
healthy, a society must above all avoid the perils of monoculture.
Biology teaches that monocultures are extremely fragile. We don’t want
to live in a fragile society. So let’s not all try to be the same or to
teach our kids to be the same. That way we as a culture will have the
all the variety that’s necessary for survival. For this to work, we must
be tolerant of other people and how they live. Just because they are
different does not mean that you’re better or they’re worse. They’re
just different, that’s all. It’s good that we are all different. Not
only does it enhance our chances for survival, but it vastly enriches
our lives and our culture. The alternative, aside from being
precariously fragile, would also be terminally boring and stagnate.
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Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
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