Text 11178, 86 rader
Skriven 2007-01-31 00:04:35 av Josh Hill (14615.babylon5)
     Kommentar till en text av rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated
Ärende: Re: My Presidential Pick for 2006
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On Tue, 30 Jan 2007 00:15:14 -0800, "Vorlonagent"
<nojtspam@otfresno.com> wrote:

>
>"Josh Hill" <usereplyto@gmail.com> wrote in message 
>news:4thqr2hgqp53n6cgssju90se29gajl87ut@4ax.com...
>
>> But how is that discomfort overcome when the behavior is hidden?
>> Overcoming that discomfort requires confronting the behavior, and that
>> confrontation is, as Freud pointed out 100 years ago,
>> anxiety-producing.
>
>For the last (and I do mean last) time, I never suggested gays should hide 
>or return to the closet.  I have been talking about modifying and/or 
>expanding the manner in which they interact.

Well, think about it this way -- it's the way I was thinking about it
earlier today: if a given heterosexual behavior is displayed in
public, why can't the same gay behavior be displayed in public? To the
extent that it can't be, it's closeted.

>> OTOH, as we become sufficiently familiar with a behavior, we typically
>> lose our discomfort -- or, if we're set in our ways, like those
>> retreaters, our children do.
>>
>> Societal repression serves a purpose. When that purpose is no longer
>> compelling, the repression is lifted, and we as individuals experience
>> a little seismic shock. Old Mrs. Prune felt the same thing in 1920,
>> when her niece bared here ankles. One can, I think, fairly argue
>> whether or not a given behavior should be unrepressed or repressed,
>> and to what degree, but I don't think one can eliminate that moment of
>> discomfort.
>
>Repression of public displays of sexuality still exists and still has a 
>purpose (though we are exprimenting to see how little society can get away 
>with).  Gays have made raw, unlimited, unfiltered sexual expression a part 
>of their public image (the gay pride parade).  Gay expression is therefore 
>repressed as a side-effect of continued repression of sexual expression.
>
>Therefore I have suggested gays should decouple gayness from sexual 
>devience.

I don't pretend to have made an exhaustive survey, but the gay pride
parades that I've seen didn't involve anything considered indecent: no
genital nudity, no sexual acts, no intercourse, what have you. (The
topless lesbians are perhaps on the edge, here in these still-priggish
States, anyway, but I'm not going to complain about that one!)

>>>Nor do you do yourself or them any favors by looking down on them for
>>>retreating in the face of the things that discomfit them.
>>
>> Part of the problem I think is that change is now so rapid that people
>> have to accept many successive changes in their lifetimes. The young,
>> the well-educated, and the cosmopolitan are, I think, more likely to
>> be comfortable with change than some others, and tend to look upon
>> those who are scared or puzzled or angered by it as backwards or
>> bigoted.
>
>I personally believe that change comes in cycles.  Changes occur, then 
>society goes into bouts of review, where some changes get tossed out.  With 
>40 years of modern liberalism now on record, it seems about time for the 
>nation to begin reappraising what aspects of the liberal social change to 
>keep and what to toss.  Gay rights has come late to the table and is 
>fighting an outgoing tide to get to shore.

I don't disagree with you about the cycles, but I'd say we've already
been through the conservative cycle, with lots of corrections to the
excesses of the 60's and New Deal liberalism, and I sense that the
country is hungry for change again. Anyway, wherever we are in the
cycle, I don't think everything follows it. And whatever the local
causes, I see the gay rights movement as a manifestation of the
greater movement towards equality that has since the country was
founded extended rights to Native Americans, black Americans, women,
and other disenfranchised groups. And the poll numbers I've seen,
which show a much greater acceptance of sexual variations among
younger people, suggest that the process will continue.

-- 
Josh

[Truly] I say to you, [...] angel [...] power will be able to see that [...]
these to whom [...] holy generations [...]. After Jesus said this, he departed.

- The Gospel of Judas
--- SBBSecho 2.12-Win32
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