Why is "You're gay!" such an insult?

Fear of homosexuality - not so much of gay people specifically, but of the concept?

I think it is actually the fear that straight guys have of their own gay tendencies. The more insecure the person is in their masculinity or sexuality, the more homophobic they are...I think. That sound right?

So, like, I'm going to play the bombast here. Don't hate me for it -- I don't take anything I say very seriously...

We're social beings, and we are hardwired to fear difference. Any look at public school classroom will confirm this.

The really smart kids and the teachers' pets? They are aberrant, and many of their peers treat them like shite.

The really dumb or weird or dysfunctional kids? Same way.

For all of our superficial love for diversity, for variety, for individualism, the greater part of human behavior is driven by rigidly-enforced conformity. In fact, such conformity is essential for the survival of a culture, a species. The fact that we have to teach tolerance and talk so much about the importance of diversity is just more evidence that human nature (which is 99% chimp), on the whole, values neither.

Being gay is just one more way of being different -- particularly in the Abrahamic tradition, in which strict conformity in the sexual arena is the norm, to the point where ancient texts demand the death penalty for deviance from the sexual norm.

(stepping off high horse)

Boomer posted a thing about some politician named West who was the ultimate homophobe in that sense -- he spent a good deal of his political career making life difficult for homosexuals and then turns out to be one, himself. (Well, HE doesn't consider himself to be, he just engaged in a highly public sham marriage and trolls for sex with male teenagers on the internet...)

Total agreement with patiodog there.

I can't go with what the Patiodawg has posited. In far too many cultures it is the lack of any proscriptions on homosexuality which distinguishes them from our society. In European history before the Protestant Reformation, the homosexual may not have been exactly venerated, but he/she was not hunted and persecuted either. It is, in my never humble opinion, precisely the injection of the Abrahamic tradition into the European polities by self-righteous bible thumpers (newly armed by moveable type with their own personal copy of holy writ) which has resulted in the obsessive fear and hatred which Protestants of many descriptions currently cherish toward homosexuals.

Hmmm... I think it can be both. Whatever the origin, homosexuality is an "other". People are hardwired to be scared of "other".

To elaborate -- I don't think viewing homosexuality as "other" is itself necessarily hardwired. Making it a category of being is a relatively new invention, if older than the category of race for example. The impression I have (you can elaborate on it no doubt) (if you so choose) is that in ancient times, the status of a person (slave, for example) was far more important than the color of that slave's skin. That records of races were basically not kept at all until relatively recently.

First of all, I don't think I've ever heard a male over the age of say, 12, use a gay reference as a method of really trying to insult someone. If they have, I don't see how it's effective.

If I want to insult someone, I'll point out their real weaknesses, to let them know they suck...not that I go around insulting people often.

However, joking around, questioning a male friend's sexuality can be amusing. Why? I don't know exactly...guess the last thing a guy wants to be known as is feminine. For example, sometimes I call my roomate "Sunshine" and point out that he may frequent rest stops off the freeway.

I can be very non-pc in real life around my friends who I know aren't offended by it, so the gay jokes go around only to friends, not thrown at strangers I'm pissed at. It's just fun to bust on your friends, usually they think it's funny too.

Kicky, have fun tonight at that bar with no windows and the large neon light outside.

Funny that you should say that Slappy. I am actually going to a tranny bar tonight. Maybe I'll ask one of them what they think about all this.

I'm not gonna say that what differences we find important and how we respond to that isn't culturally mediated. In fact, cultures define themselves from neighboring cultures precisely by keying in on some aspect of the other culture and making themselves markedly different in this regard. (Elsewhere I brought up the markedly different fetishization of the female form among Minoans and Anatolians, cultures that were otherwise largely similar.) I'd wager that cultures that tolerate a wide range of sexual behavior are not so lenient in every other aspect of human behavior, however. People have got to define the other in order to define theirselves. Within the context of the Abrahamic culture, sexual restrictions are a big part of that. Since kicky is asking the question within the framework of an Abrahamically-influenced society, I think my response was valid, though perhaps a bit over-general.

So, what, beating someone to death and stringing them up and a barbed wire fence isn't an insult?






Got your gown picked out yet?

oooohhh, that's a tranny bar.

Hmmm -

a. I was asking why some friendly with each other adult males - such as, in this instance, Kicky and Slappy IN THE AMERICAS (and mebbe in some other cultures, but I have only been moved to note obsessiveness in Americas instances) seemingly somewhat obsessively (I know that is a pejorative term - mebbe habitually?) communicate with each other using accusations and embroideries of homosexuality themes as the currency of communication.

I have not noted the same in the UK or Oz, for instance - though I may be wrong - I have certainly never noted it amongst males known to me.


I wondered what it was about in terms of seemingly friendly communication.

IS it perceived as friendly by the participants?


I know about homophobia and all that crap - I just don't get it in the situation I asked about.

b. I especially rejected "insecure in their masculinity" explanations - cos that doesn't seem so in the guys I am thinking of who I have witnessed doing it. And - as an explanation - that is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO boring!



But - since it came up anyway - what is WITH that??? Insecure in one's masculinity, I mean?

I just cannot understand that and what it might feel like/be about.

And I don't mean all the "we don't know whether we should open doors/the roles have changed and it's hard for us, we don't know what to dooooooooooo" stuff - that is just social change stuff - this seems to be a lot deeper than that.

I mean, deep in the core of me I feel female - nothing makes me doubt that, or worry about it, or feel that I have to prove it - or act in some special way to prove it to everyone else - I think. (Mebbe some women do? Is this the long nails and girly stuff? Or is that just mating behaviour??Or am I just blind to hyper-girly stuff I do)?

IS it different for guys/some guys?????? HOW is it different?

Here, in my frightening environs, if one tells a lame joke, they are told they are gay.

The joke may be pegged as gay.

Unattractive clothing is gay.

A lame line in a movie...gay.

A dumb song is gay.

These things have nothing to do with homosexuality.

Gay is the new stupid, or lame.

No secure male can be insulted by calling him gay or homosexual.

The insecure ones, however, can get quite upset about it.

I think it has something to do with not having anything else to bolster their self-worth except their over-blown masculinity.

(There's probably also a correlation to penis size in there somewhere.)

OK OK so how bout this:

The secure ones do it to show how secure they are because it flushes out the insecure ones who get all flustered.

Hmm?

Not even if it was intended as an insult?

I've had people attempt to insult me by suggesting that i'm "queer," but i have always responded by inviting them to kick my queer ass--and that shuts them up. There are some advantages to being physically large.

You old bear, you.