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Originally Posted by rahl
I think what alot of people are trying to say(might just be me?) is that the idea that an orientation doesn't exist simply is not true.
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I know. That is the general western view. However, don't you think one should be open to other ideas as well -- I'm not saying you should accept the other ideas, concepet and lifestyles, but listen to them, discuss them, argue with them, don't just brush them off without considering them or hearing them out -- they may have something of value for you, that you may not know at the outset.
The problem is 'sexual orientation' is an artificial ideology that the Western society is built upon. And like every other artificial and thus unnatural ideology, whether its communism or organized religions, it is also dependent upon propagating a particular set of ideas and assumptions ... and it must treat its basic ideology as a holy cow, which no one is allowed to question. Western spaces uaually don't allow anyone to question this ideology, and apply some form of censorship.
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Originally Posted by DaveOrion
This thread became slightly OT because its usually customary to post in the new members forum first. Just sayin
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I know, I was too eager to start the discussion ...
Time's running out!!
And, although, I was a bit taken aback initially by this uninformed moving of my thread, yet, I don't hate the new section under which the thread has been moved. In fact, I rather like it.
I now think it was done bonafide.
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Originally Posted by Idyllic
Not the west...... sorry. Again, another lie.
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I don't get what you're trying to say. The example you quote only goes to prove what I'm saying. That there was no concept of 'homosexuality' as something that only a few males had and that could be used to distinguish between males.
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Originally Posted by Idyllic
And yet:
NM do you intend on responding to women in this forum?
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I'm not anti-woman. In fact, I'm pro-women. There are just a few key issues of approach and relations with men, where I don't agree with the feminist movement.
And, yes, I will respond to anyone and everyone who's interested to discuss this.
---------- Post added at 03:33 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:21 PM ----------
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Originally Posted by levite
NM, with all due respect, I'm not sure I find your argument persuasive.
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I look forward to disagreements in a discussion.
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Originally Posted by levite
To the degree to which you are saying that rigid gender-based sexual identities are not innate to human beings, I agree completely.
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I'm saying, even loose sexual identities in the way west sees it, doesn't make sense, apart from if one has an anti-man agenda,
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Originally Posted by levite
But honestly, I have known too many people who are gay or lesbian or bisexual, and they are as manly and masculine or womanly and feminine as they feel they wish to be. Most of my gay and lesbian friends don't fit neatly into stereotypes, and they do not feel compelled or forced into socialized gender or sex roles.
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Where do these innumerable gays live (let's stick to male sexuality. I'm making no claims about female sexuality)? I have already acknowedged that a couple of masculine gendered males do call themselves 'gay' because they like men, but that is more because they don't have any option. I have received so many emails from western males, who have thanked me for making them realise that they could like men without being 'gay' ... and not just as a vain political statement, but because 'gay' really means effeminate.
Go to any gay bar, any gay event, any gay parade ... what do you see primarily? These masculine gendered males are hardly ever visible. What are masculine gendered males doing in a transgendered space anyways? Who put them there? Do they like being there? Do they belong there?
Go to a straight event. How many straight events or bars or sub-cultures have drag queens? Why do you think that is? Why are queer heterosexuals part of LGBT, and not part of the 'straight' world, if straight means 'heterosexual'. The truth is, 'straight' doesn't really mean heterosexual. It means 'manly.' And 'gay' doesn't mean 'homosexual.' It actually means 'womanly' male. That is how feminine gendered heterosexual males fit there, rather than in the straight identity.
Some gays may not like being known as feminine, or they may think of themselves as 'masculine' however, what is important here is what identity they take. The truly masculine gendered struggles with his sexuality for men and hides it. Not for nothing. It's because, he senses that the 'gay' identity is anti to his masculine gender and is devoid of manhood. you can't take a third gender identity and then take offense when your masculinity is questioned.
A group of Californians can't go and start a category called "Americans who like men" and then claim that New yorkers who like men are also Californians.
Creating a society, where to like another man, you have to become part of the 'gay' category created by the society, is also like saying that to get in touch with god, you have to be a member of the church/ organised religion, or to be able to understand and comprehend this world, you have to become a member of the institution of science. These are individual rights, and organised bodies should not be allowed to monopolize them.
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Originally Posted by levite
Now, it is certainly true that understanding sexual orientation in terms of gay, straight, bi, lesbian, etc., or in terms of the Kinsey scale, is a Western idea. And you may be correct in that your culture (wherever you are) requires different ideas. But to me, that doesn't make a critique of how the Western World deals with sexual orientation, it makes a critique of your culture's need to create its own solutions, rather than embrace those of our culture. And if you wish to say that Western society can also sometimes be culturally imperialistic, and we need to quit that, I will also accept that as fair..
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The reason I'm criticising the concept of 'sexual orientation' is not that my society doesn't have it. The reason is that 'sexual orientation' is not really and honestly 'sexual orientation' but it actually is 'gender orientation' camouflaging as 'sexual orientation.' Your 'sexual orientation' is the same as our 'gender orientation' ... with the 'manhood' category redefined in your society as 'heterosexual' and the 'third gender' category redefined in your society as 'homosexual.' I have document evidences of this, which I intend to share here, soon.
Westerners are not told this, and you'd be quite surprised to know that in your own society, in the past, there was only 'gender orientation' and no 'sexual orientation.' It was partly a misunderstanding and partly a conspiracy to redefine the 'third gender' as 'men who like men.'
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Originally Posted by levite
But really, I must say that, whatever your successes with the men in your society, I don't see your approach winning a lot of supporters in America.
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Yes. That is because western males are broken from men. They've been intensely heterosexualized. And I'm not only talking in terms of their desires, but an entire attitude and outlook towards life. It's not that western men do not like what I say. They just have no space to say they like what I say, without losing their 'straighthood.' Others, see it as a western vs non-Western issue and make it a matter of defending one's culture.
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Originally Posted by levite
While I hope and agree that our societies are learning to be looser and more flexible about our constructions of gender and sexual identity
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I'm sorry, I don't see that happening. I see your culture become more accepting and tolerant of 'gays.' But, I don't see it allowing space to men to be intimate or sexual or romantic with each other, without having to be 'gay.'
To allow males to be sexual with another male, only if they agree to give up their manhood, and give up the mainstream space and agree to go to a 'gay' ghetto to do it, is not the same as to allow men to love each other just as 'men.'
Your society maybe congenial to gays loving men, but it is certainly not congenial to men loving men.
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Originally Posted by levite
But in fact, just because the words were lacking doesn't mean that there was any mainstream social acceptance of male-on-male sexual intercourse, nor in the behavior of men as feminized and womanly.
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The immediate pre-homosexual position is pretty clear. The society just didn't acknowledge that men could fall in love with men or be sexual with them. But, the men's spaces knew that all the time that "ALL MEN HAVE A NATURAL TENDENCY TO DESIRE SEXUAL BONDING WITH A MAN." And, sexuality between males, though not formally acknwoledged was pretty common. It flourished within the safety of men's spaces.
Being sexual towards another guy just didn't make you different. However, manhood was very strongly linked to sexual performance with women, desire was not important.
There were three genders in the society. Man, woman and the third gender (those who were partly man and partly woman, including those who were males from the outside and had a feminine identity). Now, the society (wrongly) ascribed receptive anal sex with this group. However, what made them different from other men was not that they desired sex with men, but that they had a woman inside them.
This fact has been misrepresented to suggest that this group of effeminate males who sought promiscuous receptive sex from men, was 'men who like men.' And that the rest of the males (who were masculine and were defined as 'heterosexual,' just didn't feel sexual for other men, or that they all felt sexual for women.
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Originally Posted by levite
Perhaps that was so in your culture, but not in any of the Western cultures that I have studied.
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I have evidences that it was the same in your culture. Queering of your society has misrepresented the facts and that is what you end up learning. However, what is important to learn is, how was this change from the old system to the new orchestrated? Who orchestrated it? Who had a say in it, and who did not? Were there any researches or scientific studies that was conducted before trashing out the earlier ways of living?
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Originally Posted by levite
If anything, it was the willingness of people with sexual needs and identities not accepted by the main stream to come together, to speak out, to demand rights and freedom, that actually liberated people to pursue flexible and more undefined gender and sexual identities.
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Yes, but what people? History cries out loud, that the people who coined the term and concept of 'homosexual,' those who related with the concept, and those who propagated it were all, 100% of them, 'third genders' and they openly described themselves as such. What right did they have to represent themselves as 'men who like men.' Did men who like men, really want to separate themselves from the others on the basis of sexuality? The third genders wanted it because they actually wanted a separate gender identity, which they confuse with a 'sexual identity' because the west doesn't recognize gender as a valid human trait. And because the West confuses manhood with 'sexual desire for women' and male femininity with 'sexual desire for men.'
Karl Maria Benkert was not even a physician, even when gays often misrepresent 'her' to be one. He openly called himself and others of his ilk, 'females soul inside male bodies' who desire men. That is exactly what the 'third gender' in our society means.
There is also historical evidences that the real men (straight men) who acknowledged their liking for men (all straight males have a hidden sexuality for men) ... hated the idea of a separate 'homosexual' being created by the 'intermediate sex.' But since what the intermediate sex was doing fitted competely well with the anti-man forces that wanted to discourage men from being sexual with men, in a society that was now being opened up, the ruling anti-man forces gave validity and power to the concept of 'homosexuality.' The men in any case had little voice in this matter, since it is artificially related with lack of manhood.
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Originally Posted by levite
You reference ancient Greece, but that was one culture. Even in the ancient world, there were different views of love and sexuality and what was deemed appropriate or normative..
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Yet, they were all more or less the same. From old Celtic cultures to Old Germanic and Viking cultures and coming to the east, from old Samurai cultures to old Arabian societies, even Islamic societies allowed men to be sexual and even romantic with men without having to be something else, as in 'homosexual.' Only the effeminate males who sought receptive sex were 'different,' and formed a 'different' category/ sexuality, not men who like men.
And third gender with men was never seen as 'homosexual' but a form of 'heterosexuality' because 'third genders' and 'men' are not the same gender orientation or identity.
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Originally Posted by levite
And when it comes down to it, you can't tell people that their construction of their own sexual and gender identity-- often struggled for with great sacrifice-- is simply wrong.
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Well, what about your sexuality and mine? How can you allow one group of people to falsely represent part or full of your sexuality, and claim it as theirs, so that you can't lay claim to your own sexual feelings without bowing down to their authority over it?