Time for a GREAT BIG STOINKING RANT

[sparkindarkness]

Prompted by the much belaboured news of the 2 lesbians in Australia who had IVF and are now suing because they only wanted one kid and are about to get 2.

I’m not going to rant about their stupidity. Their stupidity and general wrongness is evident to anyone with enough intelligence to be able to read the English language. Ranting about their idiocy is redundant at this point.

What isn’t redundant is my anger at all those using this as an opportunity to lash out at lesbians and homosexuals in general.

These women are stupid wastes of skin because of their stupid actions. The fact they are lesbians is IRRELEVANT. Trying to draw any larger conclusions about lesbians or lesbian parents from this is not only deeply ignorant on a stunning scale but is also ridiculously homophobic.

And it’s part of an ongoing rant for me. One of the subtler but more pervasive forms of prejudice that clings on is to judge every member of a minority group because of the bad actions of a few - or even on the bad actions of a single person.

It is more than a little tiresome to be judged on the actions of a complete stranger, sometimes in an entirely different country. One lesbian couple turn out to have all the parenting skills of a stunned goldfish and suddenly its reason to comment on the parenting skill of all lesbians? If we judged all heterosexuals or all white people by such standards we would recognise how utterly ridiculous it is. Any heterosexuals want assumptions made of THEIR parenting based on some of the many vile things heterosexual parents have done in the past? No, it’s not only unjust and unfair but it’s patently ludicrous!

It annoys me that I feel the need to display nothing but impeccable behaviour at all times because if I mess up I will be “letting the side down.” Because if I snap tomorrow and go on a mad axe murdering spree of my clients you can just bet at least one of the hate groups is going to present my sexuality as the reason - and that’s assuming the major media itself doesn’t buy into it, or at least emphasise my sexuality unduly in the rampage. Even more annoying is the mindset encourages me to judge my fellow homosexuals and be angry at them if they are too flamboyant or extroverted etc. I look at some of the wilder gay pride parades or drag reviews and am irritated - NOT because I disapprove of what is happening (pride parades alone are wonderful for us in so many ways) but because there are no small number of straight people out there who will make judgements and assumptions about me based on what they’ve seen complete strangers do.

All lesbians, in fact, all homosexuals, are not responsible for or represented by these two ignorant muppets. We do not control them. We are not controlled by them. Their actions do not speak for us, do not represent us and are not indicative of our attitudes, beliefs or abilities. There are idiots everywhere, in every group and from every segment of every society.

We are homosexual. We are people, like anyone else. We aren’t perfect. We do make mistakes. Some of us do idiotic, even criminal and evil things. That doesn’t mean we all do. That doesn’t mean they should be used as a weapon against us or considered a spokesperson or general representation of us. It is sad and insulting that I feel the need to express this, but I feel it nevertheless. We should not all have to be angels to avoid being cast as devils.

Comments

[logophilos.livejournal.com]

My feelings on this are along the lines of - in a lot of countries, it's insanely difficult for same-sex couples to get IVF or adopt. So when a same-sex couple pull this kind of idiotic stunt, then not only do they give the media a chance to attack gay people, they give ammunition to the many, many opponents of gay people having equal reproductive rights as everyone else.

I know it's wrong that these two should be considered representative of all lesbians, but the sad truth is, people will look at them and see cast-iron arguments against lebsians having IVF treatment. Which is wrong. I just want to shake this pair and say, if another child was going to fuck you up so much, then you shouldn't have had the first one. Idiots.

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

see, that was my first reaction, actually, more a scream "you stupid, idiotic wastes of breath! Do you 2 realise what you are doing to homosexuals everywhere?!" I realised that I was much angrier at them than i would be a heterosexual couple.

Which is kind of what prompted this rant - because I have no right to be more angry at them than at a stupid straight couple, and it's so deeply wrong and deeply unfair that their stupidity WILL make it harder for other gay couples to access the same resources. It infuriates me so that these people screw it up for all of us, it infuriates me that people and society are so ignorant as to let a couple of stupid people represent the whole and it annoys me that I feel I can be extra judgemental of someone because they are homosexual and need to be better for all our sake.

[thisdaydreamer.livejournal.com]

I can't add anything to what you have said.

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

it just leaves me so frustrated

[wyrdrune.livejournal.com]

no small number of straight people out there who will make judgements and assumptions about me based on what they’ve seen complete strangers do.

Remove the word "straight" and you're nearer the mark! *All* people do it to some degree with different social groups; we can't help it to a large extent, but where the intellgent people score is that we are capable of seeing ourselves doing it and stopping it.

If we judged all heterosexuals or all white people by such standards we would recognise how utterly ridiculous it is.

The problem with this is by your phrasiology you're implying exclusion of lesbians from the category "all white people". I'm not going to be able to phrase this well, but what I'm suggesting is that your sentence above would be better if you had said "all chavs" or "all soccer mums" or "all long haired, flower wearing people". The problem with that then becomes that we *do* judge all base-ball cap & white shell-suit wearing people by the behaviour of others who dress alike.

[generalisation ahead] As far as the tabloids, and their readers, are concerned, anyone who isn't a WASP is a representative of their "sub-group".

(I really wish I had a white-board, I could explain what I'm trying to say so much better with Venn diagrams! :-)

I'm in no way defending their actions, or the actions of the media or those who are making the assumptions, I'm simply pointing out what appears to me to be a flaw in your reasoning.

We are people, like anyone else.

And that's the important point.

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

All people do to an extent, but it is highly pronounced towards minorities - especially oppressed ones. And it means seperate groups are under such an obsce3ne presure to be perfect.

Well that's the point. Assuming they are white (I don't know), people HAVEN'T been doing that. These women aren't just lesbians. They are women, they are australian, they are white, they are probably several other things that I don't even know about. But no-one's saying "this is why white people shouldn't have kids" or "this is why women shouldn't raise kids without a man around" or using it to attack Australians or whatever other group they belong to. All of that is irrelevent - but the fact they are lesbians is considered oh-so-pertinent.

We can judge groups, but it's scarcely so deep and encompassing and rarely as much based on what people ARE

[wonapalei.livejournal.com]

It annoys me that I feel the need to display nothing but impeccable behaviour at all times because if I mess up I will be “letting the side down.”

I couldn't possibly agree more. I may not be gay, but I am Indian, and I remember very well when I was small that my mother once took me aside and carefully explained to me that I should always keep in mind that I represented all Indians to the people I met. She stressed quite strongly that I shouldn't misbehave in public, not just because it was wrong and rude and so on, but because it would give everyone else a bad impression of not just me, but all Indians they met and would ever meet. At the time, I was obedient, but bewildered. Now, I still act by that principle, but I'm less bewildered and more pissed off.

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

That's exactly it - you represent your group so you have to be extra specially well behaved. It's wearing to be considered a "diplomat for your people." All the time? It's tiring.

[http://users.livejournal.com/iwannabe_kate_/]

Utterly agree - it drives me up the wall when the Daily Mail et al casually mention the sexuality of a criminal by subtly dropping it into a full-page headline. They do the same with race too, to be fair - they're universal bigots, not just focused on us :)
And agree with the "letting the side down" too - hadn't even realised why I felt that way at pride parades, thanks for wording it so well. I feel like whenever a gay person is acting conspicuous in any way I'm immediately on the defensive.

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

The Daily Mail hates all, they're pretty all encompassing in their hatred. But it is very true of race as well - papers are very quick to note if a criminal is black or asian or an asylum seeker (and may go further to make a big issue about their "community" even inferring a community that doesn't exist) but never do the same for a white person

I loved pride parades when i was younger. They were a place to be free, a place to shout "I AM GAY!" at a time of my life when i was very afraid to even whisper it. they were liberating, reassuring, tempering and strengthening - and yes, they gave me pride.

Now, i tend to look at the near naked people and the flamboyant drag queens and the over the top behaviour and think "guys? You're not doing us any favours." And that's wrong - wrong of me for trying to mentally push us all towards "acceptable" or conformist behaviour, wrong of me for being intolerant and judgemental and wrong of society FOR judging us all on a parade - it's be like us judging all heterosexuals based on notting hill carnival or Mardi Gras

[snuck.livejournal.com]

They annoyed me, they really did. But so did some of my friends, who latched onto one third of the argument (the lesbianism of it), and ignored the issue of the mother/s being trolling nutters who sue because they 'lost the capacity for love' by having two children, not one. Or the wider argument about access to IVF, and age, money and political influence being the deciding factors, rather than initial need.

Needless to say Rolinator got presented with a turkey baster at the very next public opportunity, and a rather solid ear bashing from his wife and I.

Your comment It annoys me that I feel the need to display nothing but impeccable behaviour at all times because if I mess up I will be “letting the side down.” is part of the issue - you are human, and fallible (sparkie-godhood aside) - and so is everyone else. I look at some of the attitudes around me, and think - sheesh - how'd you come to THAT conclusion - but then when I see how, I can see how a total lack of experience or education in certain areas has led to it.

But this whole issued raised a larger issue for me. This, coupled with the release of that abhorrent "bratz" movie, and other similar widespread shifting of social values/behaviours (not nec. around gay/lesbian, but also drugs, sexually precocious tweens, atttidues towards adoption/abortion etc) has led me to believe that society is so busy being politically correct, socially non-antagonistic, that we've forgotten to think about stuff, argue it, and debate it, and we are letting all sorts of things that are not mainstream become mainstream, become our 'new norm' and through passive non-discussion, we are passively allowing things to alter our social structure and rules. And I'm not sure whether this is a good thing or not, whether through not paying attention we are gaining a bit of a future nightmare.

I don't agree with some of the sentiments raised on my/my friends LJs over the lesbians suing issue, but at least the debate (with some individuals) was interesting, some deserved a slap. Or cultural sensitivity training.

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

I was furious when I heard the news, probably more so than most because my first reaction was "You ignorant cows! You're screwing it up for all of us!"

These women are loco. They are ridiculous. They are pathetic. they need slapping until the slapper goes numb and collapses from exhaustion. Every breath they take is wasted.

The problem with letting the side down, is that we aren't allowed to be human. because to be human means to have the capacity to have monsters among us - but if we have teh criminal, the insane, the idiot or whatever then their actiosn are just blazoned around as being indicative of us as a whole. It's sad and more than a little tiresome. I blame the media, I think a lot of people fall into this trap of thinking because the media perpetuates it. Being gay is rarely focused on as just biographical information in the media, it has to be blown up and made huge in completely irrelevent situations and contexts and it becomes centre stage for everything - so when someone hears about a gay person they tend to focus on that as being the dominant - or even total - information about them

I thyink it's less society being socially non-antagonistic per se, as m,uch as it is the hate groups hijacking any pretence at debate and using it to unload both barrels. For example, whenever you hear the words "debate" about homosexuality only a brief look will turf up the usual suspects trying to naiul closet doors shut

I think more killing of any kind of debate is ignorance, laziness and apathy which are so toxicly prevalent these days. No-one knows and even less care.

Sometimes people need a genuine wake up call as they don't realise how what they said can come acrosss