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American Republican who insisted he was not gay despite being caught having sex in a bathroom stall with a man.
Yea I know, I hate when people catch me in a bathroom stall doing another guy. Happens all the damn time.
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But being open to different sexual acts does not suggest that people have malleable sexual orientations. Using someone's body as a masturbatory aid does not mean you are attracted to them. Most gay men have historically had wives and tried women, it didn't mean they were ever attracted to the person they were with.
1) Most straight guys often use women as masturbatory aids, that does not mean they are gay.
2) you did not bother to reply to the whole crux of my argument, which is how would you explain that throughout history there have been various societies were the majority of men indulged in homosexual behavior?
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Yes, clearly its your opinion, that's irrelevant to what I was saying though. I was saying your opinion isn't reflective of how most people seem to feel about their sexuality
It's reflective of how I feel about my sexuality. It's reflective about how my university companions feel about their sexuality. And are we really going to discuss how most people feel about their sexuality? Most people think that being attracted to another man is against the law of God and effeminate. Does this in anyway reflect reality?
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and there is a lot of problems with reducing sexuality to simply to active/passive roles. How is that even a moderately useful definition, take a second to actually think about the definition of sexuality you're putting forward, it's just useless.
I never said it was flawless, but gay/straight is just as flawed.
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In what sense do exclusive gay tops and straight men have something in common in terms of their sexuality?
They both appreciate a nice piece of ***.
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Do they date the same kinds of people, no; do they hang out in the same places, no; do they watch the same kind of porn, no.
This could be said about anyone though. You can use these questions to make two straight men seem utterly different. For instance take straight guy A, the scion of a wealthy family. And straight guy B, the 6th son of a poor family in the gettho. They are both 100% straight. Do they date the same kinds of people? No. Do they hang out in the same kind of places? No. Do they watch the same kind of porn. Actually probably yes. But still you see how the questions you ask are influenced by a myriad of variables and thus kind of useless.
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At the same time you could say yes for a comparison between gay tops and gay bottoms. And frankly the only exclusive tops who have never bottomed are probably closet cases.
Once again the only thing they will have in common will be the Porn.
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No, you actually said quite clearly with respect to the Roman viewpoint on the gendering of the positions: "which makes sense, as I fail to see the lack of manliness in sodomizing another guy." You affirmed their viewpoint.
I was affirming a viewpoint, not all of them. Are you in disagreement on this, do you believe that doing another guy is effeminate?
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Sure, if I bought into your initial premise, which I don't. One of the points of the example was a form of argumentum ad absurdum to continue on the ridiculousness of the strict dichotomy you presented earlier in the post.
So you don't agree with me, ergo I must be wrong?
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The other is that it creates divisions in identity categories that are already unified by similar experiences, histories, and cultural spaces.
Tell me what a gay chinese man and a gay canadian man have in common? They are gay. Nothing else. You are making being gay out to be a culture, almost sect like. I fail to see how being attracted to other men means that automatically you belong to something greater. Once again you and a straight canadian will have far more in common that you and a gay American.
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For no other reason than it seems to appeal to the bar room musings of a group of young men who have no real connections to the gay community, so they want to invent new useless categorization so they can feel cool and different.
1) did not invent anything, merely re appropriated a definition which was used for almost a thousand years...
2) You are right we have no connection to the gay community. But that would mean that unlike people who define themselves as part of the gay community - we can think about our sexual interests both homo and hetero sexual in a much less biased way, as we merely use what attracts us, not what society thinks of us, not what we are told we should be like, neither what we would like to be like, we just use of simple method, does that turn me on? yes or no.
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No it doesn't. Being gay is different than being attracted to other men, or else we would see homosexuality manifest itself identically everywhere. And unfortunately, you don't get to choose everything that comes with it because society has this nice way of defining you no matter how you define yourself. I would say the Spartan was not gay, he would not have understood himself as being different from other men who were having sex with women, and he was probably having sex with women himself (a man who had exclusive interest in men would not have fit in with the Ancient Greek society).
Actually there are many documented cases in greek society of men who had exclusive interests in men. And this was ok, except that they had to force themselves to father a child because it was every mans duty to make a heir. Alexander the great had not interest in women. He married for political reasons and everyone was fine with that as long as he made sure he mad e a son. The emphasis amongst the greeks was the duty of child making, no one cared if your were attracted to women or not. in fact the Spartans thought that a love between a man and a woman was inherently inferior than a love between a man and a man.
Also the way spartans were homosexual is not liked by you, so they are not gay, because being gay automatically means it must fit into your narrow definition of it? Procrustean bed, you are doing it.
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This is all irrelevant blather, pointing out the inadequacies of Roman perspectives does not require our society to be better by comparison.
No it does not, but from the way you said it it sounded like you were assuming that our society had a healthier relationship to sex than Roman society. If I was mistaken I am sorry.
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And besides, if you wanted to use the Roman view of homosexuality as part of an argument (where it also was not legal for a citizen to be the bottom), then you should realize that it's the same logic that they used to justify abusive paedophilic relationships to boy slaves, who were often castrated to keep their pre-pubescent characteristics a bit longer. There was nothing dishonest, or out of left field in my inclusion of it, because pedophilia and sexism were both parts of the penetrator/penetratee perspective on sexuality used by the Romans.
Were are you getting your facts from?
It was perfectly legal for a citizen to be bottom, it was just frowned upon and considered effeminate. By often castrated also you must mean a few rare cases, namely Nero. following your logic it was common for roman sons to kill their mothers too, because Nero did it. One swallow does not make spring. Pedophile was illegal, and like I said before slaves were property and so not subject to roman law, a man could kill his slave and that would be legal, and following your logic you would say that in Roman society it was normal to kill your slaves. You are usually a logical guy, but with this your making huge leaps without reason or rhyme.
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Why do you think you have the right to redefine the ties that bring a community together? Especially when you seem to have little knowledge about the subject.
Like I said before, I am not redefining anything I am merely presenting a view which to me makes more sense. Would you have me tried for blasphemy for saying that which you do not agree with?
