Is homosexuality a form of xenophobia?

[ManOnFire]

One of my male childhood friends had an icky disdain for girls. I mean it was a nasty disdain. We were only kids, so I thought some girl wronged him at some point. Well, it was no surprise to me that later he turned out to be homosexual. He seemed to epitomize the definition of xenophobia. So, is homosexuality a form of xenophobia?

 

[Tannhauser]

One of my male childhood friends had an icky disdain for girls. I mean it was a nasty disdain. We were only kids, so I thought some girl wronged him at some point. Well, it was no surprise to me that later he turned out to be homosexual. He seemed to epitomize the definition of xenophobia. So, is homosexuality a form of xenophobia?

This is wrong and, forgive me [actually, don’t], stupid, on so many levels it’s almost untrue.

Homosexuality is a form of xenophobia to the extent that heterosexuality is a form of homophobia.

 

[svid2]

I’ve known many homosexuals who get along with the opposite sex just fine, including some women who love Major League Baseball. I think your friend is an odd case.

 

[Aelred_Minor]

One of my male childhood friends had an icky disdain for girls. I mean it was a nasty disdain. We were only kids, so I thought some girl wronged him at some point. Well, it was no surprise to me that later he turned out to be homosexual. He seemed to epitomize the definition of xenophobia. So, is homosexuality a form of xenophobia?

Nearly all the boys in my class in elementary school hated the girls, and vice versa. It was the fairly typical “girls are icky” or “boys are icky”, but taken to an extreme. The same wasn’t true to nearly the same degree for the kids in the grades above and below us, it was just a sort of cultural thing that developed among this group of kids, and it magically evaporated within the first week or so of 6th grade (Middle School). I don’t think any more of these kids turned out homosexual than one would expect on average.

If anything, it’s probably a healthy thing for boys and girls to play with members of their own sex and somewhat avoid the opposite sex for a period of their childhood, after early childhood and before adolescence. It teaches them to identify with their own sex as “same” and with the other sex as “other”, before hormones start getting them attracted to the mysterious other.

Anecdotally, very often homosexuality, at least in boys, seems to come about in exactly the opposite way than what you described. A boy that doesn’t have male friends during a crucial part of his childhood, doesn’t get affection from his father, perhaps gets too much affection from his mother, that sort of thing, and therefore longs for male companionship. Then when hormones start to hit that desire becomes sexualized.

Obviously that scenario is far too simple for something as complicated as human sexuality even in cases where something like this happens, and as your example shows sometimes a child seems to have had a polar-opposite childhood. But in any case I don’t think a real distaste for members of the opposite sex is typical among homosexuals. If anything I think it occurs more in heterosexuals, due to painful past experiences and so forth.

 

[Dakota_Roberts]

One of my male childhood friends had an icky disdain for girls. I mean it was a nasty disdain. We were only kids, so I thought some girl wronged him at some point. Well, it was no surprise to me that later he turned out to be homosexual. He seemed to epitomize the definition of xenophobia. So, is homosexuality a form of xenophobia?

:ehh:
Normally I see the claim that homosexuals hang out with the opposite gender too much causing them to not properly bond with their own gender making them try to fulfill that innate bonding desire which when puberty hits becomes sexualized, or something like that hence the “appropriate” “treatment” is for them to bond (via friendship) with a strong role-model who acts gender appropriate.

I’ve never had a problem interacting with girls, I never even went through that phase of “eww girls have cooties”.

 

[Hastrman]

This is wrong and, forgive me [actually, don’t], stupid, on so many levels it’s almost untrue.

Homosexuality is a form of xenophobia to the extent that heterosexuality is a form of homophobia.

Historically, no, homosexuality=misogyny. Know what cultures valued it? Ancient Greece, Neo-Confucian China, certain eras in Persian history. All cultures where women were legal non-entities, often with fewer rights than their own children.

The thinking goes, why would you want to fall in love with a mere woman?

 

[manualman]

Stop with the labels already. Persons with SSA are no more homogenous than black people or Irish. It’s preposterous to take a data point of one person and extrapolate that to everybody else having one of that person’s characteristics! People are messy and not neatly categorized.

 

[Hastrman]

Stop with the labels already. Persons with SSA are no more homogenous than black people or Irish. It’s preposterous to take a data point of one person and extrapolate that to everybody else having one of that person’s characteristics! People are messy and not neatly categorized.

Huh. So you’re saying Blacks aren’t more likely to get sickle-cell anemia, or the Irish to have difficulty processing alcohol?

Sorry, we keep track of demographics for a reason: nobody but God is smart enough to deal with people solely as individuals.

And it’s even more the case with homosexuality: as it is a mental disorder (strictly from a biological standpoint, such behavior, whether genetic or learned, is grotesquely maladaptive), it’s likely to have one or relatively few causes. Most do.

 

[Dakota_Roberts]

Huh. So you’re saying Blacks aren’t more likely to get sickle-cell anemia, or the Irish to have difficulty processing alcohol?

Sorry, we keep track of demographics for a reason: nobody but God is smart enough to deal with people solely as individuals.

And it’s even more the case with homosexuality: as it is a mental disorder (strictly from a biological standpoint, such behavior, whether genetic or learned, is grotesquely maladaptive), it’s likely to have one or relatively few causes. Most do.

Some parts of Africa have significantly lower odds of sickle cell anemia than parts of India…
Irish have difficulty processing alcohol? I thought it was that they drank too much

There are gays that are extremely effeminate and then there are gays that are extremely masculine, there are lesbians that are very masculine and there are lesbians that are extremely feminine. There are of course those who are in the middle and match gender stereotypes. And of course not matching gender stereotypes isn’t necessarily bad, St. Jeanne d’Arc didn’t match gender stereotypes and she wasn’t a bad person Bl. Newman was mocked quite a bit for being effeminate and he wasn’t a bad person (not saying either were homosexual, merely that they didn’t conform to gender stereotypes).

 

[Hastrman]

Some parts of Africa have significantly lower odds of sickle cell anemia than parts of India…
Irish have difficulty processing alcohol? I thought it was that they drank too much

There are gays that are extremely effeminate and then there are gays that are extremely masculine, there are lesbians that are very masculine and there are lesbians that are extremely feminine. There are of course those who are in the middle and match gender stereotypes. And of course not matching gender stereotypes isn’t necessarily bad, St. Jeanne d’Arc didn’t match gender stereotypes and she wasn’t a bad person Bl. Newman was mocked quite a bit for being effeminate and he wasn’t a bad person (not saying either were homosexual, merely that they didn’t conform to gender stereotypes).

No, actually, the Irish, like most Native Americans and also some Russians and Scandinavians, lack a chemical in their blood that processes alcohol. There’s actually a physiological reason they can’t hold their liquor, but thank you for the racial slur.

As for “gender stereotypes”, you mean “sex stereotypes”. As a person with a small knowledge of the Navajo language I find it offensively Eurocentric of you to claim that “gender” has to do with male and female—Navajo has 14 genders, not one of which is masculine or feminine, and they control how the verbs relating to motion are inflected. Only European and Semitic languages have “masculine” and “feminine” genders; Finno-Ugraic languages, and most Indian languages, have two, animate and inanimate, while Bantu languages like Zulu and Swahili usually have over a dozen.

Also, St. Joan the Maid was—I have read the transcripts of her trial—about the girliest girl you could conceive of, she fit every “stereotype” to a T, except she wasn’t stupid enough to wear a skirt on a battlefield or in prison.

 

[Dakota_Roberts]

No, actually, the Irish, like most Native Americans and also some Russians and Scandinavians, lack a chemical in their blood that processes alcohol. There’s actually a physiological reason they can’t hold their liquor, but thank you for the racial slur.

As for “gender stereotypes”, you mean “sex stereotypes”. As a person with a small knowledge of the Navajo language I find it offensively Eurocentric of you to claim that “gender” has to do with male and female—Navajo has 14 genders, not one of which is masculine or feminine, and they control how the verbs relating to motion are inflected. Only European and Semitic languages have “masculine” and “feminine” genders; Finno-Ugraic languages, and most Indian languages, have two, animate and inanimate, while Bantu languages like Zulu and Swahili usually have over a dozen.

Also, St. Joan the Maid was—I have read the transcripts of her trial—about the girliest girl you could conceive of, she fit every “stereotype” to a T, except she wasn’t stupid enough to wear a skirt on a battlefield or in prison.

The stereotype is that Irish drink to much, I’ve also heard from two of the priests I know (both grew up in Ireland and entered seminary there) that Irish men do tend to drink a bit too much of alcohol.

We are using the English language, no others right now. One definition of gender is sex, however gender stereotypes flows better as a phrase than sex stereotypes.

Leading troops AFAIK isn’t feminine in the slightest

 

[Hastrman]

The stereotype is that Irish drink to much, I’ve also heard from two of the priests I know (both grew up in Ireland and entered seminary there) that Irish men do tend to drink a bit too much of alcohol.

We are using the English language, no others right now. One definition of gender is sex, however gender stereotypes flows better as a phrase than sex stereotypes.

Leading troops AFAIK isn’t feminine in the slightest

Well, not then (post-Philip the Fair France—it was, further back, during the High Middle Ages), but do you actually believe she did that?

Because she didn’t. It’s a myth.

And you are incorrect. Gender is a grammatical term. It has no other meaning. The idea that “gender” is an acceptable term for sex stems from people being ignorant of anything but European languages, where the genders are masculine and feminine, and also too prudish to say “sex” (or, later, wanting to deny that there really was such a thing as “male” or “female” rather than “masculine” and “feminine”).

And the Irish may or may not drink too much alcohol, but that doesn’t change the fact that their blood chemistry is ill-equipped to deal with it.

 

[ManOnFire]

This is wrong and, forgive me [actually, don’t], stupid, on so many levels it’s almost untrue.

When a man cheats on a woman or the woman tires of men, then the woman becomes a lesbian, she’s making a sweeping judgment about all the men on the planet. It’s xenophobia, and it has happened thousands of times.

 

[Dakota_Roberts]

Well, not then (post-Philip the Fair France—it was, further back, during the High Middle Ages), but do you actually believe she did that?

Because she didn’t. It’s a myth.

And you are incorrect. Gender is a grammatical term. It has no other meaning. The idea that “gender” is an acceptable term for sex stems from people being ignorant of anything but European languages, where the genders are masculine and feminine, and also too prudish to say “sex” (or, later, wanting to deny that there really was such a thing as “male” or “female” rather than “masculine” and “feminine”).

And the Irish may or may not drink too much alcohol, but that doesn’t change the fact that their blood chemistry is ill-equipped to deal with it.

Bearing a standard can also be considered leading troops into battle, you don’t have to be at the front of the charge and in the thick of it. And of course she was involved in battle planning.

English doesn’t really give a dam about other languages, it is a language that lurks in dark alleys, beats up other languages and rifles through their pockets for spare vocabulary.

Male and female do obvious exist, but masculine and feminine are terms used to label things that are normally associated with a sex as such.

Okay

 

[Hastrman]

English doesn’t really give a dam about other languages, it is a language that lurks in dark alleys, beats up other languages and rifles through their pockets for spare vocabulary.

Male and female do obvious exist, but masculine and feminine are terms used to label things that are normally associated with a sex as such.

Sigh. That isn’t the issue. The issue is that using “gender” in that sense is a lame-brained academic neologism, motivated by prudishness at best and radical politics at worst.

Academia mangles its own vocabulary all the time, it’s probably the most trend-conscious field there is. They made a similar puppet from the corpse of “paradigm”, I wouldn’t be surprised if they do it to “declension” sometime soon. Those are words with a very definite meaning, yanked out of their proper context, and made to do some task for which they are not ideal, solely to satisfy some deformed itch to label things.

 

[manualman]

Funny, I’m substantially Irish and my body processes alcohol just fine (on the fairly rare occasions i drink). This is precisely the problem with stereotypes that I asked people to refrain from. There is no need at all to assume that every Irishman you meet is a drunkard waiting to happen and that he must not be allowed a pint. Why not find out before assuming?

Similarly there is no need to assume when you first meet a gay guy that his mom is domineering, his father absent or that he sucks at sports. These things might actually be true of a lot of gay guys (and Irishmen in the earlier example). But assumptions jumping before the facts are known just make you look ignorant. The original premise here that gay guys generally hate women is one such notion, and not even one widely applicable.

 

[CHRISTINE77]

I don’t think it’s xenophobia, but I do think it is a form of arrested development. It’s like they really are still in elementary school, where the girls and boys don’t play together.

 

[EasterJoy]

When a man cheats on a woman or the woman tires of men, then the woman becomes a lesbian, she’s making a sweeping judgment about all the men on the planet. It’s xenophobia, and it has happened thousands of times.

You say this because you know all of the thousands of lesbians whom you believe to have done this. You also don’t know any heterosexual women who give up on men and romance, both, and a pox on all of it?

Nothing against you generally, but be glad that you didn’t throw out this particular wild idea for the consumption of the people who know you in person. It is a dilly. You could get teased about saying something like this for years. Maybe a lifetime. “Hey, ManOnFire, gay pride on the news again. Catch all the woman-haters dressed up like Marilyn Monroe, blasting Patty Cline on their stereos, and raising money for the Princess Di charities! That’s a xenophobic bunch, just like you said!!”

No, homosexuality is not even remotely a form of xenophobia. That is “an unreasonable fear or hatred of foreigners or strangers or of that which is foreign or strange”. Homosexuality is a preference for members of one’s own gender in matters of sexual relations. It has nothing to do with whether you like or don’t like the opposite gender in other respects. Homosexual men abound who adore being around women (and vice versa), just not as sexual partners. It is hardly uncommon for lesbians to enjoy the company of men, including “men’s” work, hobbies, clothing, and recreational sports. (“Tomboys” have been known to grow up to be lesbians, too.)

Most boys who “hate” girls at 12 will obsess about finding one to like them at 18, then will grown up to count themselves most fortunate when they induce one to marry them. Of these, a good many will go beyond that to father several more females and then go on to unashamedly adore them.

The truth is, homosexual boys are, if anything, the most likely of all their male peers to play at “female fantasies” with the girls during childhood, such as playing house. Just as everyone else in their “play group”, they want to grow up and play house with a boy! Other homosexual boys get along great with girls in a male social role, but don’t feel any spark for girls. Yes on the dance partner part, ma’am, but I really don’t care for the goodnight kiss, if it is all the same to you. No xenophobia there.

Having said that, homophobia is a form of xenophobia. Not that you asked. Just sayin’.

 

[EasterJoy]

Historically, no, homosexuality=misogyny. Know what cultures valued it? Ancient Greece, Neo-Confucian China, certain eras in Persian history. All cultures where women were legal non-entities, often with fewer rights than their own children.

The thinking goes, why would you want to fall in love with a mere woman?

Ah, but you’re not talking about making it a taboo to want to have sex with women. You’re talking about taboos against close friendships with women. Modern homosexual men do not have cultural taboos that prevent them from having platonic friendships with women.

You’re also not talking about sexual relationships, but self-indulgence with sexual acts, which in “certain eras” allowed sex at will, in whatever form the man willed, with anyone he willed, provided his victim did not have social status (in themselves or a patron such as a parent or owner) that would make refusal possible.