Some Musings About Sexual Orientation and Stuff

I don't know about all this other stuff being discussed, but I have asked if anyone can tell me why the Bible is used to assert that marriage is a thing confined to one man and one woman.

Not trying to be a wise ass. I truly do not know where it can be found...and I know that the greater part of the Bible suggests something quite different from "marriage is a thing confined to one man and one woman."

I'm abnormal in many ways, some of which I take great pride in.

You comment might actually be as clever as you (and snood) think it is, if I hadn't specifically addressed the fallacy of equating abnormally with defect or immorality.

It's what I expect of you two though.

Stop being an ass, Parados.

Heterosexuals are often clueless about their homophobia...some will make homophobic comments or actions and you call them out on it and they are unable to grasp it...often saying the old cliche "I have gay friends" as if that would ever preclude someone from being homophobic...and its that lack of understanding that makes it difficult for me and many like me to be around heterosexual men...because quite frankly its uncomfortable because of their behavior...or comments that they may think are common stereotypes even maybe supported by the gays themselves...well...that would be wrong...especially as the thumb of oppression is slowly lifted and many of us gays are becoming more aware and having higher expectations than times when we were forced to be around them and there was no expectation of being politically correct...over the years I have chosen to remove myself from the heterosexual male community at large because I got sick of the constant comments or digs that are made to assert gay men as being effeminate...when in fact its not true...whats true is that gay men got that stereotype because of the many gay men who throughout history were effeminate and couldn't hide it...and were forced out because the only society that would accept them was the gay culture...well over time we now know how many masculine heterosexuals have been in hiding and those stereotypes aren't true anymore.

I can't because my thoughts on marriage are not based on anything the Bible contains.

The Bible contains wisdom and it contains nonsense.

The wisdom is to be embraced, and the nonsense to be rejected.

Homosexuality is a sin is an example of the nonsense, whether it is based on choice or genetics.

I missed this remakable part of your post.

Please explain the basis of your knowledge.

My friend in CA Michelle got married just two years ago. Her and the husband are having problems. We were talking on the phone this morning and she said to me,

“He might as well be Gay since he hates women”.

That couldn’t be farther from the truth, gay men do not hate women.

In no way, shape or form do gay men hate females. Heck some I know wish they were one!

Does she have other gay friends besides you? This sounds like someone who doesn't know much about gay men.

My gay friends have trouble getting along with some straight men, but they all have lots of women friends.



Edit: I take that back. I did know one gay man who hated women. But he wasn't typical. He didn't get along with anyone.

She doesn’t, I’m the only one. In CA most of my friends were straight. Unlike here in Florida where most everyone I know is Gay.

She thinks her husband might be gay, I have my gaydar calibrated every 30 days, he’s a straight man that’s for sure.

I am don't have many women friends. A few, not too many.

Very rare that I have trouble with straight men. The most difficult ones are those who are clearly jealous of my charm, grace, poise, intelligence, incredibly good looks and of course empty bank account.

That's interesting. Would you say that gays and straights mingle more in California, but in Florida, gays have a separate community? Or did you make friends in CA before people knew you were gay?

Please tell me where I can get my gaydar calibrated. It could use a tune-up.

I think the reason why my gay friends have trouble with straight men is due to the fact that I'm in Oklahoma. There's a lot of homophobia here, especially among straight men. Unfortunately, it is still socially acceptable for straight men to insult gays. Women, even very conservative ones, are usually much more accepting.

Re: jealousy over charm, grace, good looks, etc...well, that is perfectly understandable!

Oh yes, in CA when I would go to a party it would be half and half, straight and gay. Not here in Florida. Someone throws a party and its all men.

In CA it was different, I had gay friends but they were spread out from San Francisco to San Diego. Here in St. Pete it’s like living on an island, very large gay community, and everyone knows everyone, also everyone’s business. Which isn’t always a good thing.

I wouldn't like everyone knowing my business. Close is good, but that's too close for comfort.

Several pages later (I missed this thread somehow and haven't read it through - or if I responded, I don't remember), I'll tell my story again, trying to keep it short. Probably impossible.

- raised catholic in the forties and fifties, I made it all the way to university before I had any idea that homosexuals existed. And I was a teen who read fairly widely to learn.

- my first schools were old fashioned catholic schools, but in retrospect, pretty sane atmospheres.

- my high school, on the other hand, was small and run by one of the most conservative religious orders in the country (I did read that somewhere, not just my opinion). I was taught enjoying sex in marriage is a sin. Meantime, I hardly knew any boys at all, until I got a job at sixteen and it was a lot of fun to talk with them. I read westerns (which was what was on the bookshelf in my aunt's house) for the one-paragraph sex scenes. That's why I read The Virginian five times. By today's standards, what sex scene?

I read the Ligorian, a magazine my parents subscribed to, which told me at length about the dangers of petting and then being in a car crash: hell.
I became scrupulous, never being able to figure out if I had accepted an impure thought or not.

- this all broke down with time, as I met real life around me at work and university. My first lover was a jewish atheist guy, and I thank him in memory to this day that that time was wonderful. I've been slightly in touch with him about a year ago, when I ran across a book he wrote and contacted him. He married the woman after me, who was even then more right for him, and they're still happy. This is pushing fifty years.

- my next memorable lover was an m.d. whom I met as an intern, and was signed up for the Navy after the internship. We were together about a year and a half, with us driving between two cities to spend weekends together. I was crazy about him, crazy attracted, plus being in love with his mind.
There was trouble off and on. We stopped seeing each other but were still in touch, him calling me. Eventually he told me he was seeing a psychiatrist because of his anger. (Now we'd call that having issues.)
I moved on, not without a lot of crying. That's when I started taking drawing classes.

- Ten or a dozen years later, maybe '85, I had a brain flash and knew he was gay or at least bi back then and working it out. When we were together, I was still dumb as a doornail about gayness but had heard of it. I remember a walk on the beach where he had brought the subject up, and I said the dire word, deviation. And then defended it, as deviation from the mean which is sort of what I meant, but that also included some phobia in there. He didn't pursue the conversation. Years went by with our not being in touch, as I said, but not immediately after that beach walk.

- So, when the light dawned, I wrote a mutual friend I was still in christmas card contact with and told her what I had figured out, and she told me that he had just told her that he is gay about a month before that. She had his address, and I wrote. We met again, this time in San Francisco, my going up there with my husband, with hub politely disappearing after meeting him. Talked a blue streak and have been in contact since.

- his mate of now many years fits part of my description, including landscape designer; I've visited them and stayed over a bunch of times. I still like him, still a great mind and wonderful person.

My point - those were my two best lovers.

That whole sequence changed me.


On pda, that depends.

I moved to Columbus, Ohio in the late 1980s, and lived there longer than i've lived anywhere else. When i moved there, there was a neighborhood just north of the downtown area known as the Short North. It was in a pretty sad condition at that time; the shops and apartments were run-down and the inhbitants were drunks or druggies. At that time, the main "gay" neighborhood was German Village, south of the downtown area. But a change was about to take place. Yuppies were moving in droves to German Village, beause when affluent gay men and lesbians take over a neighborhood, they usually fix it up, which is what happened in German Villiage.

Beginning in 1bout 1989, the gay community began to move to what is known as Victorian Village, west of the Short North. Victorian Village, on Neil Avenue, is mostly residential. The expected effect occured. Gay couples and lesbian couples began to buy the properties and fix them up. But it wasn't a commercial district, although there were shops here and there.

So the gay and lesbian couples began buying properties in the Short North. When i moved there, there was a property at the corner of High Street and Buttles which was an antique shop. Not a successful antique shop--there were thick layers of dust on everything--but the building has apartments above the first floor, so anybody who is not a complete fool can get by there.

A gay couple bought the building, and converted the moribund antique shop to a coffee shop. It was almost instantly successful. It has a large basement, and they put a water filtration unit in there, and the coffee was very good. That intersection is ideal in an urban neighborhood were most people walk, and there were bus stops for the city's excellent transport system on both High Street and Buttles. After a few years, they sold out to another gay man with some silent partners. They ten bought out a dying bar across the street and converted it to a florist shop. They were just as successful with that, which is what they had always wanted to do.

The gay man redecorated the coffee shop--it was horrible. But with a steady clientele who ignored the new decor, it continued to do well. He also invested some more money more sensibly in fixing up the apartments upstairs. Property values were already increasing in the neighborhood, and they were able to get top dollar for those aparments. The silent partners came forward, and they were a lesbian couple, and another lesbian and another gay man. They also bought another property and made it into a gallery. The Short North in the matter of a couple of years became the city's gallery district. Once a month there was a gallery hop, when the suburban tribes would come into the city to gawk at the gay boys and spread around some of the wealth. You could hardly get in the door of the place on a gallery hop night.

The coffee shop had already built up a loyal clientele before it became a "gay" coffee shop. The original gay couple were not flamboyantly gay, and i suspect many customers didn't know. I'm pretty sure they didn't care, either. I patronizxed the place for years, until i moved to a town to the west of Columbus. I never saw any animosity between gays and "straights" there. Everybody got along well. The changes in managment just made the clientele a little younger, bringing in more OSU students. I'm sure there were any number of rednecks who hated gays as a knee-jerk reaction. But they couldn't afford to live in that neighborhood any longer.

Gay couples moving into a neighborhood are the best thing that can happen to property values. They fix the places up, they call the cops if there's a problem, and they usually have the money (no kids in most cases) to invest in improving the neighborhood. You could see it in German Village, and then in Victorian Village and the Short North.

(still catching up, I agree with that post of yours)

They did the same thing in Laguna Beach and West Hollywood. Property values went up and the younger gay couples couldn’t afford to buy. The older gay couples that fixed up their homes sold them and most moved to Palm Springs, which is now the new gay Mecca of CA.

That is what is happening in St. Pete. This town use to be a retirement community. They called it Gods waiting room. Home prices dropped, the gays started moving in and buying up all the old cottage style homes and fixing them up. Now entire neighborhoods are Gay.

Funny on the calibration.

Very interesting! You're talking about my area, as you know, so extra-interesting to read that history.

I did know the general trajectory but appreciate the details.

Columbus seems to be an especially gay-friendly city. I'm sure it has some ugly incidents (not because I know about them but because I'd be surprised if there were literally none), but generally speaking there are a lot of out gay people and nobody seems to blink. A bunch of my kid's classmates have gay parents. A friend of mine is a one-woman Pride parade 24/7/365 -- she's hilarious (and awesome).

What's cool about it is that when I say "Columbus" I mean the whole area -- Victorian Village is an especially gay outpost, but most of the rest of the area seems pretty sanguine, too. When I lived in L.A., for example, Weho (West Hollywood) was the gay outpost, but much of the rest of the area was considerably less tolerant. (My boss in the Valley went to some effort to try to stay in the closet, never officially came out I don't think though it was patently obvious to several of us and once he figured out we wouldn't cause any problems, he stopped trying so hard around us. But just us. He was pretty stressed by the whole thing, and evidently had experienced a lot of discrimination.)