Why are there no self hating heterosexuals?

[dsc]

There are certainly heterosexuals who have been raised in gay households. But we don't see heterosexual bashings with gays clucking that the fault lies with self hating heterosexuals. Yet we always see the opposite. So why the difference? Why don't straight people freak out about the notion of being different from their families? If it all about fear, that presumedly comes from the sky, about something you know little about, why don't we see heterosexuals being bashed?

My point is that I am a bit tired of hearing whenever we see a gay bashing and attempt to point out that some, not all, but some of the blame lies with religious leaders, often Christian, saying that gays are evil, AIDS is God's work, God hates fags, and a host of other things telling us that it is moral to hate gays. Instead we hear that it isn't their fault but instead the fault of self hating gays.

Let's say that every single act of violence directed toward gays is indeed perpretrated by self hating gays (something I find ludricrious) there would still be a heaping helping of blame borne by these radical clerics. By wrapping their bigotry in the cloak of Jesus they are making not just acceptable, but almost required, bigotry against gays. Gays are blamed for hurricanes, pedeophilia, witchcraft, death, terrorist attacks, and a host of other plagues by these radical clerics. If one believes gays cause all this havoc why shouldn't they beat us to a pulp. Why shouldn't they tie us to a fence and pistol whip us to death? Why shouldn't they jump us on our way home from school and break our nose with a spray can? Why should a young person who fears they might be gay start to fear and hate himself? Why shouldn't they engage in self destructive behavior? Why shouldn't they attack the people who embody their fear of becoming a pedeophile who causes God to lift his protection of our entire society?

Words have meaning. If the radical clerics and their followers really believe gays embody evil then of course more than a few will attack gays when they can. The fear and hatred of gays didn't fall out of the sky. It is the result of years of purposeful hate spewed attacks by radical clerics who either believe gays are evil and are acting accordingly or don't believe that but are preaching hate to fill up their pews. Either way the radical clerics provide moral cover for murder and mayhem directed toward us. It isn't religious bigotry to point this out. They aren't entirely to blame, they may not even be half to blame, but they are some to blame. It isn't bigotry to say so.

[shadowknows69]

1. Speak for yourself

I am plagued daily with feelings of guilt over the fact that the gay community won't ever get to experience the magnificent junk I keep in my trunk. Did that even make sense lol? Sorry, it's a heavy pill day. being silly. I kid because I love.

[zippy890]

26. yes it made silly sense

glad to see you posting - hope things are going better for you.

your post made me laugh- you must be doing better!

:)

[Deja Q]

40. I'm so sorry you feel that way. I'm sure you'll find somebody someday.

:pals:

[Skidmore]

2. Gay bashing exists because heterosexuals loathe themselves

and fear down deep inside that they may be tempted to indulge. Don't know another way of saying this. There are lots of self-loathing heterosexuals out in Puritan America. Yes, they hide behind their rhetoric--out of fear of others and of themselves.

[katsy]

11. Right...

"Yes, they hide behind their rhetoric--out of fear of others and of themselves."

a/k/a republicons.

[Skidmore]

23. I think you missed my point.

Hatred and fear feed one another--whether they are directed at the self or at others, and we hate what we fear.

[katsy]

29. I agree with you.

Read the one sentence where I quoted you. It seems to be a good fit with republicons IMO. The gop politicians use fear to feed hatred --- the gop sheep wallow in that hatred.

Look at the sheep in particular. They either hate the poor, or fill in the blank with the hated du jour:__________ (black/brown/muslim/yellow/liberals/socialists/environmentalists/women/anyone of a faith different from theirs).

It's as though they fell in love with their reflection in the mirror and fear every thing and all others.

[Skidmore]

33. Then I missed your point. Accept my apologies

for misunderstanding.

[katsy]

34. No apology necessary Skidmore.

No offense taken.

I wasn't very clear in my post.

[yurbud]

3. when people mention the "self-hating closet cases" here, it is to discredit homophobes

by pointing out hypocrisy rather than absolve straights of guilt, much like pointing out that Dick Cheney treats his gay daughter differently than his party would have our government treat other people's gay kids.

I doubt that Cheney has any sexuality apart from covering himself with molasses and rolling around in money.

Pointing out the closert case homophobes also shows that being gay is so hardwired that even people who find it very offensive on ideological grounds still can't manage to "choose" to prefer the oppositie sex.

[Skidmore]

5. Eeeewww.....Any thought of Cheney close to be nekkid

is a shock to the system.

[yurbud]

31. you are a moneyphilophobe

[papau]

4. I agree with your post - but I suggest they're self-hating heterosexuals - bullies cause a lot

harm in this world and self-hate is one of them.

Granted the "cause" is not sexual orientation being dumped on - but the result tends to be similar in those that have a self-hate reaction (most do not - but many do).

At least that is my observation and therefore my opinion - based on no professional certification and worth every dime you paid for it!

I also agree that bullies that hide behind religion should be shouted down by others of their faith - and when that does not happen it is fair for those outside the faith to point it out and condemn the bully and also the lack of response. But I don't see how that extends to condemning the faith. Bullies may claim their faith authorizes them to be bullies - but I know of no faith where that is really true.

[doggyboy]

18. I think you're on to something with the bullying

There certainly does seem to be some sort of self-esteem issue raised whenever hatred is the motivating factor for violence. The perception of, and reaction to, a threat (two things that bullies, with their poor social skills, do inaccurately) is directly related to how one views one's ability to deal with the threat; an issue of self-esteem.

However, while there does seem to be some self-esteem issues here, the "self-hating gay" does rub me in the wrong way as it seems to put the blame either square on gays, or on some faceless purveyor of religious ideology. I see no reason why it would be rare to find bigoted heterosexuals with low self-esteem who seek to bolster their esteem by attacking a homosexual. And I see know reason to assume that a homophobe is a "gay in denial"

[realisticphish]

6. Pretty simple, IMHO

as you mention, homosexuals are demonized in our culture (though that is getting better, albeit sxtremely slowly). Heterosexuals are not. If a hetero lived in a culture where they were demonized, that concept would be more common.

And I doubt that any significant number of heterosexuals are "self loathing," at least for reasons of sexuality. Their sexual identity is labeled as "normal" by society, so there's no reason at all to loathe oneself for that. Homosexuals shouldn't loath themselves either, but you outline much of that in your post.

[Clark2008]

7. The problem is that it's a collection of reasons and not just ONE.

Bashing all Christians for the actions of a few or assuming that the actions of some gay bashers are becausee they're Christian is too knee-jerk. We don't KNOW what causes some people to act out the way they do and we should stop trying to psycho-analyze the world.

Punish them if they did it and continue to educate others. Stop stereotyping both gays AND Christians.

[dsc]

10. I have no idea if the perpretators are Christian in these cases or not

but the hatred didn't drop out of the sky and in this country the driving force of that hatred is Christian. Thus conservative Christians and those who refuse to speak up against them, are partially responsible for this. Not totally, but partially.

[BlooInBloo]

8. Oh my fucking god.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

9. Sure there are.

As Exhibit A I give you...my ex-sister-in-law.

She just attempted to check herself out of this vale of tears, for the second time, with 28 Klonapin. First time was by hanging herself. My brother held her up while my nephew cut her down. This last attempt had her in a coma for a week, while on dialysis and a lot of other therapies.

She is a self-loathing garbage head. She'll take anything, like pound a pint of liquid codeine. Eww. Any drug will do.

And no, North Carolina does not have any law regarding being a danger to herself or others, so she has yet to be forcibly committed for her safety.

One thing I know from crisis work is that there are a lot more self-loathing heterosexuals out there than GLBTIs. The latter learn how to survive, early on. The former? For many, not so much. Self-loathing heteros are just not used as a political football by demogogues.

[dsc]

12. NC doesn't have a commitment law? I live here and admittedly have no idea

but that is shocking. I do wish her well and hope you can get her some help, somehow.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

15. Nope.

No commitment law whatsoever. After her first attempt, I called down there and was put in touch with her caseworker by the investigating officer(she called me.). After I told her my bona fides, modest as they are, I asked her Ex-SIL had not been committed. She told me that NC does not have such a law.

Amazing. Just amazing.

[dsc]

20. I could see, though not agree with, a libertarian argument

for there not being a committment law in the case of harm to self but harm to others ought to be a slam dunk. We aren't exactly a libertarian capital.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

21. If someone is clearly suicidal...

By either utterences of ideations, ideations and a plan or attempts, that is evidence of something very, very wrong. I see no libertarian argument that has any merit.

It is not rare for a person who is acting on their suicidal ideations to involve others or take others with them.

[dsc]

22. I agree that we are playing with fire

it is only a matter of time before someone who is known to have mental issues goes on a shooting spree and then we will all say "why didn't someone do something?"

[doggyboy]

13. Does she loathe herself because she is heterosexual?

That's my take on the phrase "self-hating homosexual". It's someone who hates themself because they are a homosexual

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

17. No, she hates herself because she breathes.

Personally, I think that the number of gays who are suicidal because they are gay is almost non-existent. If there are GLBTI people out there who have suicidal ideations, with or without a plan, I suspect other issues are in play.

[Chovexani]

41. "Non-existent?"

:wtf:

One word: teenagers. I say this because I could have been a statistic at age 16 myself. Thankfully my attempts were unsuccessful.

GLBTQ youth are 3 times more likely to attempt suicide than their hetero peers. When you're a queer kid growing up in a gay-hating fundie household that constantly tells you that you're evil, perverted, a Satanic freak...if you get sent to one of those bullshit "ex-gay" programs...suicide starts looking real attractive.

[doggyboy]

14. Because "I hate my white ass. I'd rather be black" doesn't have the same ring to it

for some people.

:shrug

[Jed Dilligan]

16. Abrahamic religions teach us all, gay or straight,

to hate our own sexuality and that of others.

[doggyboy]

19. Other religions can be quite sexually conservative

Asia has it's ascetics, and single sex monasteries are not limited to the Abrahamic religions.

[Jed Dilligan]

24. Never said anything to the contrary...

but I'd be willing to bet that 99.9999999% of the homophobia, misogyny, and sexual repression in our society can be traced back to Abrahamic teachings.

[doggyboy]

25. my bad

I read too much into that. I apologize for putting words in your mouth.

And while I'm sure you're basically right (I might quibble with the %, but it is high) the presence of this line of thinking in all cultures suggest a deeper cause.

[Jed Dilligan]

27. I probably did shoot somewhat high.

The ancient Germans (according to Tacitus) killed homosexuals by pressing them into peat bogs, and Christianity is in many ways a thin overlay on the old Saxon warrior culture.

There's also the ancient Roman twist--the idea that the sex of one's partner doesn't matter, but one's sexual position does. So a free citizen could sodomize all the male slaves he wanted, but being on the other end was considered extraordinarily shameful and grounds for legal censure. I feel like an element of that is present today; Latino "macho" culture is identical to the ancient Roman in this regard.

You could make the argument that pre-technological agricultural societies need mechanisms to curtail non-reproductive sex, because they depend on a vast labor force. Many non-agricultural societies are notable for their relaxed (to our eyes) sexual mores. The most homophobic cultures have arisen in the most successful agricultural regions--Europe, the Near East, South and East Asia. That's "food" for thought...

[doggyboy]

28. All very good points

I see we have a similar outlook. In fact, I would make that argument about non-productive sex, but the justification would be "they needed the babies" instead of a need for "vast" pools of labor. Even smaller agricultural units, needed every available hand. High mortality rates and all.

For most of existence on this planet, humans did not have civilization or even agriculture (How's that for taking it farther back than the Abrahamic religions?) and it was a subsistence level existence. Even in a tribal culture, there is a need for enough babies to at least maintain their existence.

[Jed Dilligan]

30. This is going pretty far off-topic but

it deserves its own thread. Is there an Anthropology forum?

There is only one universal sexual taboo, and that is parent-child relations. This has more to do with maintaining the social structure than function. Hunter-gatherer societies are more notable for birth control practices (including infanticide) than for practices (like the Abrahamic taboos against same-sex relations, masturbation, and sodomy) that favor reproductive sex. This is not surprising in light of the fact that hunting and gathering is an extremely land-hungry lifestyle--50 to 100 square miles per person, and that's in a resource-rich landscape (like Central CA, where I live.)

But the basic point that all religions/cultures are in some ways f*cked up about sex--you're right.

[rasputin1952]

32. This is really not as complicated as some might feel...

Throughout history, whenever a group that was "different' from the norms and mores of a society, they became targets for abuse. This is generally based on ignorance as opposed to a real look at the individuals being persecuted.

There are volumes dedicated to the hatred of Jews, Blacks, Whites, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Europeans, Asians Africans, AmerIndians...the list is as long as there are differences in people and societies. The key is, the longer people are told they are trash, the more likely they will believe it. In recent history, the Jews of Europe were exposed to massive waves of hateful propaganda, eventually, many of them began to believe they were actually less than human. THe military does the same thing with enemies, they dehumanize them so the average person feels little to no guilt in killing them. Often, this is so effective, the killing goes on w/great relish...:(

The bottom line is that people are ignorant and they take that ignorance and make an issue of the situation. We hear of whites hating blacks, but there are many instances of blacks hating whites, especially in the African nations. Exploitation, once again, based on ignorance and the justification that ignorance brings with it, has been around as long as societies have been around.

To summarize...As long as we look at differences, as opposed to likenesses, we will have problems w/hatred.

[Lilith Velkor]

35. Self-hating heterosexuals tend to blame everything on the opposite sex

Just ask Eve.

[dsc]

36. kick

[dsc]

37. kick

[NashVegas]

38. We Call Them "Sluts" and "Womanizers"

"Libertine" was once a fashionable word to describe what were self-loathing male heterosexuals.

When I think of "self-loathing homosexuals," I think of a former roommate in the 1980s, who had a tendency to bring home skeevy dates (I use the word 'date' very loosely), and occasionally (sans date) pass out drunk on the living room floor.

[dsc]

39. kick