Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Nowhere Man]

Well, Gopher was the one who introduced the homosexual militants into the discussion. The authors' names are Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson. The book's name is And Tango Makes Three.

That should be enough info to connect them to the nefarious gay plot to overthrow the world described by said poster. Unfortunately, I can't find any evidence of the kind.

Maybe it was just extremist hoopla.

[Gopher]

[Ya-ta Boy]

[Gopher]

[Nowhere Man]

And when did you find out about Post-Modernism?
About a week and a half ago?
You sound pretty impressed with yourself.

[Ya-ta Boy]

[daskalos]

Sexuality as a social construct. Piffle? Not piffle?

Welllll, it depends entirely on what we�re talking about, and in the West (and East, et al) that�s a delicate, nuanced question. To examine it we have to define our terms.

There�s the concept of The Homosexual. The Homosexual is homosexual regardless of the sex of the person or people s/he has sexual relations with. History, ancient and modern, is full of examples of people who chose to follow their culture�s norms and not indulge what was for them an inherent impulse. I have personally known more people than I can count on all of my and your digits who never had sex with another person of the same sex until well into their adulthood, some into their old age. The tale they tell is invariably that they just never had the courage to act on what they always knew to be true, on whatever level they knew it. My point is that even if I, a lifelong gay male, had never had sex with another man I would still be a homosexual. Even if I�d married a woman and had children, I would still be a gay man, just one who chose not to live as one.

It�s not homosexuality or heterosexuality that is a social construct. It�s how gay and straight people live with it that is. Leaving actual bisexuality aside for the moment, you either are or are not gay, and what you do with your genitals doesn�t affect this fact, except to fundamentalists. That�s pretty clear so far, isn�t it? Good.

Oh, let�s put off discussion of actual bisexuality, shall we? Let�s talk instead about essentially straight people who cross the line. There are more of them than any straight person on this board would like to think. I�m not talking about the Ted Haggards of this world, and I�m not talking about men in prison or on deserted islands. (I am talking about, since it�s the arena with which I am personally familiar, men.) I�m talking about men so essentially straight that it would never occur to them to engage in any sort of sex that involved a *beep* entering their bodies, but who don�t have much compunction over the idea of letting some man administer, shall we say, oral supplication. Or even anal supplication. In my experience, such men do not for the most part consider themselves to be bisexual. Such men have, actually, entire cultures that echo and validate this idea of themselves. If you�d like a list of the cultures that don�t consider sex to be gay unless you�re the man receiving, PM me. (I know, we in the West tend to call these men �tops,� and look with superior derision on anyone who would say otherwise.)

So, this penguin book � what effect might it have on society and its sexual practices? First, it might let young people know, young people who have no other means to hear the news, that what they feel is valid. This is a dangerous idea to people who do not believe anyone should have homosex, who believe that good straight people can be seduced into becoming bad gay people. Second, it might lend the idea to some less fussy, more frustrated straight men the idea that getting a knobber from a homo isn�t the masculine sexual death knell they may have been otherwise led to believe. This is an unbelievably dangerous idea to people who believe no one should engage in homosex. Something like the gateway drug pot is touted to be.

It�s that these people who are afraid of this book don�t understand the difference between being a gay man and a man�s having some sort of sexual release with a man. They think the act defines the person. They think contact is contagion. What they don�t know and what would shock most of the people on this board is that there are hordes and hordes of straight men who get occasional service from gay men. These are men, by and large, who have put aside this society�s constructions about what is gay and what is straight in favor of what feels, in the purest, most elemental sense, good. And they are, for every practical purpose, straight.

These men are to be distinguished from the other hordes and hordes of men who, though they live straight lives to which they are sexually and emotionally devoted, also have a taste for occasional, receptive homosex. These we can call bisexual, even though many of them don�t call themselves that, and we can add them to the people who claim to enjoy all forms of sex with both and women, more or less without preference. And there are, again, enough of them to shock everyone on this board, because most of them keep it a secret. Whatever else was wrong with Kinsey�s research, my practical sampling of the planet bears out his assertion that gay vs. straight exists on a scale from never to always and everything in between.

So what is the actual line that we can draw between straight men and gay men, irrespective of what they call themselves and of what society needs to call them? Here�s the shocker � wait for it � it has nothing to do with sex. It�s all really and only about emotional - that is to say, romantic - attachment. I can and have had sex with women, but marry one? Oh for godsake no.

And that�s what this penguin book is getting at. That there are some males who want to set up life partnerships with other males, romantic life partnerships that may echo male/female ones but that are, indeed, different. The book is not about a different kind of sex but a different kind of love. This book and ones like it can�t create more gay people, only more gay people who are willing to live the lives they should. And despite the earnest beliefs of radicals on both the left and the right, such people will never be a majority, so the six-point-something-billion strong species is safe.

The whole point missed by most people is that gay relationships aren�t different because of the number of penises or vaginas involved, they�re different because of the combinations of psyches and egos involved. There is indeed something to the whole idea of Venus and Mars, and that is most clearly seen when we examine relationships that are Mars/Mars and Venus/Venus. Different biological/emotional dynamics, different needs, different expectations, different outcomes.

If this fucking penguin book can help gay and straight people understand this fact, even the young ones who don�t equate relationships with sex yet, then hurray. What a good idea. It won�t make any little straight boy or girl into a gay one, but it might help a gay one from having to fake a life it doesn�t belong to, and it might help little straight boys and girls from growing up with the need to hate and/or kill the gay ones.

Gopher, are there idiots in academia who wish to overthrow the dominant hetero paradigm? Oh sure. But they are fringe idiots, and you know they are. You know they won�t make any straight people into gay ones, because you know that�s not possible. Will they possibly make some straight ones more likely to sample the forbidden fruit from time to time? Oh, maybe. And so? Does this spell, to you, the end of procreation and the species? Could such a book in your formative years have turned you to the dark side, have washed any taste for women out of your life? I suspect not. If I�m wrong, then I suspect your predilection in that direction isn�t all that sure and true to begin with.

This damned penguin book is one that will do no harm to anyone and may help some people who need it. Let it the *beep* go and move on to worrying about something on which your admirable brain power might have some positive effect.

[mithridates]

Is there anything that hating gays won't solve?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lz9JCsKQfbY

[Gopher]

[Satori]

[laogaiguk]

[Gopher]

Thanks for the response, Satori.

I agree, too, that sexual harassment is an actual problem. And it is good that we have addressed it.

But I was not commenting on or evaluating "sexual harassment," per se. Rather, I was asking how it came to occupy the place it does today in American jurisprudence and esp. in the workplace -- that is, in nearly everyone's daily lives. When did this change occur and what forces drove it? Why did it take the particular form it did?

For anyone following my posts here, by the way, these are obvious rhetorical questions...

[Satori]

As I understand it, the move was driven by radical feminist intellectuals, right?

[Gopher]