Dear Rob Reiner, please stop saying that marriage equality is the last piece of the civil rights puzzle

So on a news report this week, I saw Rob Reiner talking about how gay marriage is the final piece of the civil rights puzzle. This is apparently something Reiner has been repeating for months.

I appreciate how dedicated Reiner is to SSM, but he needs to stop saying that. Transsexuals Trans people are still fighting civil rights battles. Immigrants are still fighting civil rights battles. Black people are still fighting civil rights battles. Etc, etc (I’m not going to attempt to list every group). Reiner erases a lot of crucial struggles every time he frames same-sex marriage in this way.

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51 Responses to Dear Rob Reiner, please stop saying that marriage equality is the last piece of the civil rights puzzle

  1. 1
    Robert says:

    Don’t forget gun owners!

    Rob Reiner is a Hollywood egoist convinced that the portion of the struggle that he is touching, is the important part. It’s important because he’s touching it. Since he isn’t deeply involved in other aspects of the struggle, they can’t be important.

  2. 2
    KellyK says:

    Yes, thank you for this. It’s one of the *many* pieces of the puzzle. Also, I’m pretty sure the civil rights puzzle is one of those evil puzzles with jigsaw edges rather than straight ones. And it’s ALL SKY.

  3. 3
    CaitieCat says:

    If I might gently note, Amp, trans* people don’t generally use the adjectives as nouns about ourselves: trans people, transgender people, transsexual people, but not “transgenders” or “transsexuals”, if you would, please, in the same sense that you wouldn’t generally say “Blacks” (rather than “Black people” or “Black Americans” or “Black women”, for example).

    I use “trans* people”, btw, to cover the whole Venn diagram of “people who aren’t cisgender”, hence the wildcard asterisk.

    I do appreciate the recognition that we’re part of what’s not been addressed yet, though. It’s like the “last acceptable prejudice” meme, which hasn’t ever been true when I’ve encountered it.

  4. 4
    Ampersand says:

    Oops! Thanks, CaitieCat, for the correction.

  5. 5
    RonF says:

    I have to wonder why it is that famous entertainers think that they have opinions that are better than anyone else’s on anything other than entertainment.

    And yes – the struggle for 2nd Amendment rights is one of the biggest civil rights battles in the country right now. They are far more repressed than gay rights.

  6. 6
    mythago says:

    RonF, you know, I’m a gunfondler myself, and that is complete horseshit.

  7. 7
    CaitieCat says:

    Thanks for hearing me so graciously, Amp. :)

  8. 8
    Robert says:

    Mythago –

    How many people went to jail last year for violating the laws against being gay or having gay sex, and how many people went to jail for violating the laws against possessing a firearm?

    I wouldn’t characterize it as Ron has characterized it, but there is a lot of active state repression of gun owners.

  9. 9
    gin-and-whiskey says:

    Robert says:
    March 7, 2012 at 8:11 am
    How many people went to jail last year for violating the laws against being gay or having gay sex, and how many people went to jail for violating the laws against possessing a firearm?

    How many people are adversely affected by not owning a gun? How many people would live in misery if they couldn’t own a gun?

    Legally you have a small point; morally you don’t.

    Gun ownership is specifically protected by the U.S. Constitution; sure. But the reason that it needed protection had everything to do with citizens’ relationship to democracy, and little to do with people’s rights to live as they wish. Gun ownership is not something which people generally need to be happy, on an individual basis.

    The right to gay marriage isn’t specifically protected by the Constitution, of course. And there’s still some debate about whether marriage generally is a Constitutional right. But whatever your views on the topic, the common view is that it’s STILL a lot worse to be punished for who you are in your daily life, than it is to be sanctioned for insisting on carrying a firearm that you could easily go without.

    Want /= need.

  10. 10
    RonF says:

    gin-in-whiskey (a concoction I’ll not soon be trying, BTW) said:

    How many people are adversely affected by not owning a gun? How many people would live in misery if they couldn’t own a gun?

    According to surveys done in 1993 and 1994, the answer is likely “millions”.

    But the reason that it needed protection had everything to do with citizens’ relationship to democracy, and little to do with people’s rights to live as they wish. Gun ownership is not something which people generally need to be happy, on an individual basis.

    I believe that you are dead wrong on this. People in fact have a need to be and feel secure; to be able to live where they need to, go where they need to and conduct their lives in such a fashion so as to pursue “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” in the knowledge that they will be able to defend themselves against those who would violently contest their security, property and life. It is the height of immorality to attempt to interfere with a person’s right to self-defense, a right that is far more basic than marriage. Yes, part of the reason that the government was forced to be obliged to protect the right to keep and bear arms was due to the relationship between the citizen and his or her government. But if you think it is unrelated to the right to self-defense you need to do some research.

    Now, you may say “I don’t own a gun and I’m happy.” Many people make the mistake that by paying taxes to support police they have transferred the responsibility for self-defense to the State. But this is an illusion. You have granted authority to the State to defend you, but the responsibility still rests with you, as you may find out if you end up cornered in your own home against a couple of criminals bent on violence with no cops around and no prospect of such for at least a few minutes, if at all.

    I wish no harm to anyone. May your illusion never be shattered. But no right is higher than the right to life, and to deprive someone of the ability to preserve it by restricting one’s civil rights is just about the most immoral thing I can think of.

  11. 11
    mythago says:

    @Robert, complaining about state violations of the Second Amendment is one thing. Pretending that gun owners are THE MOST REPRESSED is horseshit.

    Also, you and I both know how misleading your comment was. You’re not pretty when you play dumb.

  12. 12
    james says:

    If you’re going to criticise someone, you should at least try to understand their argument from their perspective.

    “There is one community in America that is not regarded as equal under the law, and that is the gay community, so we feel that this is the last piece of the civil rights puzzle being put into place.”

    You can talk about civil rights in an expansive sense of security, non-discrimination, and limitations on the powers of the state. That’s how you can talk about black people still fighting for civil rights and Robert and Ron can troll about gun owners.

    But there was (is?) a particular Civil Rights Movement in the US which was very narrowly focused on the specific problem of equality before the law. When Reiner says SSM is the last piece of that movement he’s on very strong ground.

  13. 13
    CaitieCat says:

    Oh, that’s awesome, James, I hadn’t heard they’d passed a civil rights bill to protect trans and non-binary-gendered people! Thanks for bringing that to our attention, I’m so glad that Mr. Reiner’s blinkered, privilege-wrapped statement was true, and you’ve come to explain to us how it is that the rights for those who still don’t have them – they just don’t count! W00t!

    /acidic sarcasm

  14. 15
    Ampersand says:

    James, I’d argue that immigrants — and in particular, undocumented immigrants and those suspected of being undocumented immigrants — are not treated equally under the law. I don’t mean this in the trivial sense of “they broke a law and might face legal consequences for that,” but that they are often subjected to special laws (such as laws forbidding them from attending public colleges), and are treated without the civil rights that we typically treat other people with (for instance, locking them up for months without trial, which happens regularly for no other misdemeanor offenders).

    There’s also the obvious ways that black people are not treated equally under the law; differences in conviction rates and police treatment of Black people is well documented.

    Finally, I don’t think there ever was a civil rights movement that focused exclusively on equal treatment under the law, and ignored all other inequalities. Certainly, neither the Black civil rights movement nor the feminist movement could be accurately described that way.

  15. 16
    Charles S says:

    And even for gay and lesbian rights to formal legal equality, we still don’t have a national ENDA or a national Fair Housing Law.

  16. 17
    Keith says:

    As pointed out, there are other civil rights that still need to be backed up in the law. Also, when it comes to marriage, we’ll only have full marriage equality when an adult, regardless of gender or sexual orientation, is free to… 1. not marry in the first place; 2. divorce if no longer wanting to be married; 3. share love, sex, residence and marriage with any consenting adults… without prosecution, persecution, or discrimination. A woman should be free to marry another woman, even if that other woman is already married, as long as all agree.

  17. 18
    Robert says:

    Mythago, the point of my comment was not to “play dumb” or even – as I explicitly disavowed Ron’s characterization – to make the case that gun owners are more repressed than gay people. Rather, it was to note that there has been a major shift in *active state repression* of individual human beings. A hundred years ago, the answer to my question would have been very, very different, because a hundred years ago (even twenty years ago) the machinery of the state was actively deployed in an attempt to suppress gay human beings. Now, it is not; the state repression (still considerable) which exists is of the passive sort, denying validation of gay marriage and similar. I don’t feel that pointing this out is “misleading”; data is not misleading unless it is irrelevant to a discussion, and “who does the state lock up” seems relevant to the question of who is being repressed by the state.

    Repression Olympics is pointless; gun fondlers should be shouting for the state to get out of the marriage business and let people live as they wish, and gay-rights activists should be manning the barricade for the second amendment, because both causes go directly to the heart of the civil liberties cause: the state should be excised from all areas of life where its mandate does not explicitly run. We have to have a government; we don’t have to have a government that tells us we can’t marry our lovers or use only government-approved methods for self-defense.

    Like Ampersand, I think that the broad view of civil rights is the one that people care about. Equal treatment under the law is a good thing, and worth fighting for – but it is often the battleground precisely because it is easier to define, easier to legislate, easier to fight for than more expansive philosophical views, not because it is the real issue or the only thing worth talking about. The plaintiffs in Brown sued the school board to integrate the schools, not to force white people to respect black people, because integrating the schools is something that the legal system can achieve with a unitary act.

    James, if you think that gun rights and civil rights for blacks aren’t interrelated topics, google “Monroe NRA NAACP 1957” and get an eye-opener.

  18. 19
    Elusis says:

    A hundred years ago, the answer to my question would have been very, very different, because a hundred years ago (even twenty years ago) the machinery of the state was actively deployed in an attempt to suppress gay human beings. Now, it is not; the state repression (still considerable) which exists is of the passive sort, denying validation of gay marriage and similar.

    Good to know.

    Apparently the local and state policies which actively repress positive descriptions of same-sex sexual orientation and activities in schools are a figment of my imagination then. As are the local, state, and school policies which actively deny students the right to convene Gay-Straight Alliances and other similar organizations. And the national policy (DOMA) which actively forbids the federal government and its various entities from recognizing legal same-sex marriages performed in states which permit them. And state laws which actively forbid said states from doing the same. And state laws [Prop 8 cough] which actively remove a right to marriage equality previously found in the state constitution and actively being exercised by members of its populace.

    We won’t even get into state laws which actively prevent trans people from being able to change their birth certificates, or state and local statues which actively prevent trans people from using bathrooms or being imprisoned with people of their own gender expression, etc. etc. handwave because we’ve already asserted that the final slice of the civil rights pie is down to “gay people” or “gun owners” so who’s counting?

  19. 20
    Elusis says:

    Nancy – I have to admit that I have a hard time taking seriously any article which says that ammonium hydroxide is a bad idea because it “has potential to turn into ammonium nitrate — a common component in homemade bombs.”

  20. 21
    Robert says:

    Those are examples of passive policies and laws, that I acknowledge as being repressive. But they aren’t the kinds of laws that we had 20 or 100 years ago, where people were thrown into jail for having gay sex or (see the other thread about Lawrence) just being perceived as being gay. 20 or 100 years ago we didn’t have those laws and policies, because somebody who tried to teach normative homosexuality in the schools would have been beaten to death either by the sheriff or with his complicity long before the issue reached the school board or the legislature. There has been a shift; the shift was not to a utopia where unicorns fart golden perpetual motion machines, but I never said it was. I said it was a shift from active repression to a more passive mode, and I stand by that because it is a correct description. We do not have to believe that gay citizens stand in total equality to recognize that conditions are very different than they used to be.

    Pretty much everyone on the thread except for James has explicitly or implicitly rejected the “last slice of the pie” concept, so I do not know you are arguing with on that point.

  21. 22
    RonF says:

    You can talk about civil rights in an expansive sense of security, non-discrimination, and limitations on the powers of the state.

    My understanding of “civil rights” is that they are those rights that it is the job of the government to protect.

    That’s how you can talk about black people still fighting for civil rights and Robert and Ron can troll about gun owners.

    How is that trolling? Rob Reiner apparently (I didn’t listen to the video) made the claim that establishing a right to gay marriage is the last piece needed to complete the civil rights puzzle, and both the assertion by the poster and the consensus of the commenters here is that he’s wrong. Various people offered opinions and examples on how he was wrong and that there are other rights being denied people that are part of the battle for civil rights. I proposed that the right to keep and bear arms is as much a civil right as gay marriage is. In fact, to my mind it has a superior status, since unlike gay marriage, or indeed marriage in general, it’s actually enumerated in the Constitution. And there’s no question that it’s a right that various governmental bodies and authorities have sought to unconstitutionally withhold from the public (while often exempting themselves).

    But there was (is?) a particular Civil Rights Movement in the US which was very narrowly focused on the specific problem of equality before the law.

    It was narrowly focused on the specific problem that black people were denied equality before the law. And while Rev. King was focused on that for some very good reasons, I believe you can demonstrate from his speeches that he never imagined that said narrow focus was the only legitimate use of the phrase “civil rights”. In fact, when Reconstruction was over and control of the State legislatures were returned to the citizens of those States, one of the first laws passed by them denied blacks the right to buy or own firearms.

  22. 23
    CaitieCat says:

    LOL, RonF, does your hobby horse have a name? If not, I suggest “Trigger”.

  23. Pingback: “8″: A Play about the Fight for Marriage Equality | Alas, a Blog

  24. 24
    KellyK says:

    Hehe…nice one, CaitieCat. Smokey could also work.

  25. 25
    Grace Annam says:

    Rob Reiner is self-evidently wrong; pass same-sex marriage tomorrow and I could still be fired tomorrow with “Because it’s a transwhatever” written on my personnel action, and have no legal recourse.

    I am both a gun owner and trans (in increasing order of importance, because I could sell the whole collection tomorrow but I’m stuck with my nature). I’m not interested in playing oppression Olympics.

    But the slope of the curves are different. There’s no doubt that, on the whole, the arc of trans history is trending toward justice, even though there’s a long way to go. Gun owners, on the other hand, are on the whole increasingly restricted.

    It fascinates me that people can argue passionately for individual freedom of choice in abortion and individual freedom of personal expression (including the freedom to own and use the best tools for the job), and in the next breath argue against individual freedom to use force ethically (including the freedom to own and use the best tools for the job).

    It fascinates me equally that people at the range will complain loudly about the smallest restriction on their right to keep and bear arms, and in the next breath argue against a woman’s right to choose and against the right of adults of the same sex to marry.

    Regardless, getting back to Reiner’s mistake: Amp is right.

    Grace

  26. 26
    Aghast says:

    It seems to me that the phrase “Civil Rights is meant to convey the idea that the rights enumerated in the US Constitution are often applied in an unequal manner as are rights not enumerated there but which are all the same assumed. This was certainly true for much of US history. White, heterosexual, property-owning males certainly enjoyed access to rights that other groups did not such as the franchise.

    RonF is certainly correct that gun ownership can be seen as a civil rights issue if the right to bear arms is unfairly or unequally applied across specific groups (ie if guns are restricted by race or gender). But gun ownership in general is not often seen as a civil right in itself but is more appropriately described as a political right (because really the 2nd Amendment isn’t talking about hunting or skeet shooting; it’s about defense, particularly defense in a politcal context).

  27. 27
    Robert says:

    Grace – do you really think gun rights are on a restrictive trend? I’m not a student of it but it seems like, at least in the US, gun owners are on a roll as lower courts are bowing to recent SCOTUS rulings on the 2nd amendment and telling jurisdictions that they have to relax or remove their regulations.

    I share your fascination, though it’s a fascination that makes me want to shake people and yell “do you not get that freedom for thee requires freedom for me???”

  28. 28
    mythago says:

    What Robert said. There’s been a sea change in the last couple of years toward the Second Amendment; I really don’t get the idea that gun ownership is more restricted.

  29. 29
    Ampersand says:

    Has Obama pushed any gun control legislation since taking office? Is gun control even part of the national democratic platform anymore? It’s my impression that, at least on the national level, Democrats have surrendered on the gun issue.

    (My own opinion on gun bans is that they create a victimless crime, and victimless crimes are disproportionately enforced against minority groups, therefore I’m against them at least until racism is eradicated.)

  30. 30
    Robert says:

    Sort of. Obama has floated some gun control legislation, but not very hard and often abortively. (IE, he or an aide will float an idea, then pull it back hastily.) On balance his administration has expanded gun rights, for example signing a law allowing carry in national parks, but has gotten little or no credit for it from my side of the aisle. In large part this no-credit-for-you stance is justified; it’s clear that rhetorically and preferentially he is quite anti-gun (his track record as a legislator is plain), but he has bowed to the political reality that Americans do not want substantial new curbs on firearms.

    (More accurately, swing voters do not want new gun laws. I am sure that the mass of Democrats remain more or less committed to the idea that guns should be closely regulated if not banned, but he already has those votes.)

    I have to admit that the level of frothing paranoia from gun-fondlers on the right about Obama is amusing. Everyone is convinced he’s got a secret plan to have UN storm troopers come in the dead of night and take away all the guns. And who knows, maybe that is what he would like to see happen, but he’s made no efforts in that direction. The new stance on the far right is that he’s waiting for his second term to try to disarm us all so that his Marxist Kenyan Muslim allies can take our women. Or something.

    There is nothing about gun control visible in a casual search at democrats.org. A site search using Google reveals…a bunch of press releases condemning Mitt Romney for being pro-gun-control. So yeah, I’m going to go with the Democrats having given up on this issue, at least nationally. Whether independently or as part of a joint strategy, I think they agree with Obama: it’s a loser issue, so let’s drop it for now.

  31. 31
    Nancy Lebovitz says:

    Grace, you’re the only other person I’ve seen say that abortion and gun rights are related issues– I see them both as being related to individuals being permitted to make important decisions.

    Eluesis, I admit I didn’t look at the pink slime article carefully– I just took away the point that cheap low quality food is part of school lunches, which seems plausible.

    The link about “tough love” programs is much more important.

    For a small example, how about the story which turns up in the news now and then about store owners using Frank Sinatra or somesuch to drive away teenagers? This is portrayed as funny. How would driving away some other group because just seeing them is frightening look?

  32. 32
    mythago says:

    I have to admit that the level of frothing paranoia from gun-fondlers on the right about Obama is amusing.

    And let’s face it, that’s the real reason behind the no-credit-for-you, secret-gun-h8r stance. If it were a Republican legislator saying that he personally opposes broader gun rights, but is bowing to the recent Supreme Court decision and the will of the people, the NRA would be giving him a handjob for his principled stance.

  33. 33
    RonF says:

    CatieCat, what are you talking about?

    Grace:

    … gun ownership can be seen as a civil rights issue if the right to bear arms is unfairly or unequally applied across specific groups (ie if guns are restricted by race or gender).

    First, I don’t think that a right has to be restricted at all to be considered a civil right. A right may well be freely available to all without restriction and still be seen as a civil right. Calling something a “civil right” is a description of its nature, not its current availability.

    Second, I don’t think that the fact that a right may be restricted differently among different groups makes it a civil right. If a right guaranteed by the Constitution is restricted from everyone equally, said restriction is still a civil rights issue.

    What differentiates the right to both keep and bear arms from the right of women to have abortions or for people of the same sex to have a bond between them recognized as a marriage is that only one of them is specifically called out in the Constitution. To claim that the other two are covered under it requires a much more convoluted reading and exposition of the document.

    As far as how 2nd Amendment rights are doing these days; yes, it’s on an upswing. But only because of a lengthy, concerted and expensive struggle. And it is far more acceptable in politically correct company (who are supposedly sensitive to civil rights violations), the media, and politics to be in favor of taking away gun rights than it is to fail to favor changing the definition of marriage. A politician who thunders against SSM is sure to be pilloried on the front page of the New York Times and headlined in aghast tones on the nightly news. But someone who calls for restricting one’s civil right to be armed will see such treatment in very few media outlets.

    Here in Chicago, when the Supreme Court struck down the City’s ban on handguns the City Council quickly passed a law that allowed you to own a handgun. If you pay $100’s in fees. If you buy it outside the City, since gun stores are banned in Chicago. If you take an expensive “safety” course. Which you can’t do in the City, because gun ranges are banned in Chicago. And if you keep it only in your home and don’t walk outside with it onto your porch or into your garage, even if it’s attached to your house. Imagine if the City banned the construction of churches in the City and wouldn’t let you pray in your front yard but claimed that you could still freely exercise your religion because you can pray in your home and drive to churches in the suburbs. It’s an insidious effort. The City simply passes law after law and dares you to spend huge sums of money and years of your time fighting it. Legally they can’t take your rights away. Functionally, they have.

    Actually, there are distinctions of groups with 2nd Amendment rights. When ownership of handguns were restricted, guess who was exempted from such restrictions? That’s right – the aldermen and the Mayor, who can freely pack whatever they want (not that the Mayor, who has uniformed cops assigned as his bodyguards 24/7, has to worry).

    Nope. The battle for civil rights in this country is far from over. Although I well imagine Mr. Reiner would disagree with my reasoning as to why.

    Robert:

    gun-fondlers

    Really? Should we start calling gays “penis-fondlers” then?

    Yeah, there are nutbags who are looking for Obama’s stormtroopers to fly in the black helicopters and take their guns. Probably about as many as there are nutbags who figure that the Koch brothers are taking over the country. Neither group represents the majority of their side of the aisle.

    There is nothing about gun control visible in a casual search at democrats.org.

    Well, sure. Of course not. I doubt any of them even own a gun, so I wouldn’t go to them for an exposition on how to properly control it. Here’s your first step – use both hands.

    So yeah, I’m going to go with the Democrats having given up on this issue, at least nationally. … it’s a loser issue, so let’s drop it for now.

    “For now” being the operative phrase here. What’s got people worried is that there were actually 4 Supreme Court justices who somehow figured the 2nd Amendment didn’t mean that citizens had the right to keep and bear arms, and that a 2nd Obama term and Democrats taking the Congress back could a) end up with a couple more Supreme Court justices that agree with the current minority on the issue and/or b) the Federal government adopting the Chicago strategy of simply loading on more and more restrictive laws and making people exhaust themselves fighting them. Like in California, where they want individual serial numbers stamped on each bullet driving up the cost of ammunition past people’s ability to pay.

  34. 34
    Grace Annam says:

    Ron, just so you’re aware, you attributed something to me which was actually written by Aghast. Would you like me to fix that attribution for you?

    Grace

  35. 35
    mythago says:

    RonF, all the people I know who use the term “gun-fondlers” are, in fact, pro-Second Amendment folks who really like guns and who use the term for themselves.

    But shouldn’t you be reserving “penis-fondlers” for straight women? There are a lot more of them than gay men.

  36. 36
    Ampersand says:

    Sheesh, Ron. I could sort of understand you suggesting using a hateful term for gays if you were responding to hateful term from a gay left-winger anti-gun person — although even then, it would obviously be against the norms of “Alas,” and it would not be okay. But do you really think that Robert is left-wing or anti-gun?

    Don’t do that again, please.

  37. 37
    Robert says:

    I didn’t see or perceive it as being hateful, coming from Ron (who I am sure has his homophobias, as do we all, but who has always been respectful to gay people in my sight), and given that the reference was completely topical to the thread, and given that the reference was morphologically identical to the gun-fondler label introduced by mythago and reiterated by me, and given that he used the proper vernacular for male genitals rather than “cock” or somesuch (which could convey a sneering tone) and given what I read as an astringent, “look how silly this would be” tone rather than a hostile or gay-baiying tone.

    I am flexisexual, though out of practice, so add to my opinion whatever weight that adds. If other queerish individuals took a negative impression from it, I will recognize the weight of their perceptions. But it didn’t bother me.

  38. 38
    mythago says:

    @Robert, it wasn’t “this would be silly”, it was “how would YOU like it?” As for ‘penis’ rather than ‘cock’, I’d chalk that up to a dislike of vulgarity.

  39. 39
    gin-and-whiskey says:

    mythago says:
    March 9, 2012 at 11:05 pm
    But shouldn’t you be reserving “penis-fondlers” for straight women? There are a lot more of them than gay men.

    Statistically, I think the term is most applicable to teenage boys.

  40. 40
    mythago says:

    That works also. I am just endlessly amused at how often derogatory terms for LGBTs are actually “you engage in a sex practice I do/enjoy having done”.

  41. 41
    Grace Annam says:

    gin-and-whiskey:

    Statistically, I think the term is most applicable to teenage boys.

    Let’s see…
    pretty much all heterosexuals, male or female: check.
    pretty much all bisexuals, male or female: check.
    pretty much all gay men: check.
    pretty much all lesbians: nope.
    pretty much all asexuals: nope.

    Crunching the squishy numbers, looks to me like it covers about 95% of the human population. As an epithet against gays, it’s something of a nuclear warhead, isn’t it?

    Grace

  42. 42
    Robert says:

    Male asexuals pee. Nearly every male touches himself to pee. “Fondle” implies but does not absolutely require gratification, arousal, or pressure. So add a couple percentage points in there.

    It does seem a pretty damn inclusive term (sorry, lesbians, but it looks like self-selection to me, so tough noogies!). Add that to the list of reasons it doesn’t bug me.

  43. 43
    Ampersand says:

    There are plenty of self-identified asexuals who have sex (for instance, for companionship or to please their lover).

    That “penis fondler” is such a much-encompassing term makes using it as a term to mean “gay men” even less sensible, imo.

  44. 44
    Grace Annam says:

    Robert:

    Male asexuals pee. Nearly every male touches himself to pee. “Fondle” implies but does not absolutely require gratification, arousal, or pressure. So add a couple percentage points in there.

    Nope. Merriam-Webster: “To handle tenderly, lovingly or lingeringly: caress … to show affection or desire by caressing.” It’s not merely touching. I’ve seen a lot of people with penises pee, in my day, and not much lingering goes on. You may not add the male asexuals to your demonic penis-fondling coterie.

    It does seem a pretty damn inclusive term (sorry, lesbians, but it looks like self-selection to me, so tough noogies!).

    No, no, it wasn’t self-selection. You don’t choose sexual orientation.

    Grace

  45. 45
    Mandolin says:

    You may not add the male asexuals to your demonic penis-fondling coterie.

    With Amp here. Some asexual people have sex and will fondle their partners’ tallywackers.

  46. 46
    Grace Annam says:

    Oh, I agree with Amp @43; he was talking about people engaging in a sex act. I was disagreeing with Robert, @42, who was trying to (ahem) insert “handling whilst peeing” into “fondling”. Sorry for lack of clarity.

    So, to re-state: Robert, you may only add those asexuals who actually fondle peni to your demonic etc coterie. Amp, carry on.

    Sorry, Robert. Them’s the breaks.

    Grace

  47. 47
    Robert says:

    Damn it, I’ve got a huge gap in my demonic coterie and a warehouse absolutely stuffed, and I mean STUFFED, with asexual guys disinterestedly stroking penises and now I have to start OVER. Fucking online dictionary, misleading me about fondle.

    All right, this thread has gotten silly.

  48. 48
    RonF says:

    Mythago, every time I’ve encountered the term “gun-fondler” – and I’ve encountered it a number of times – it’s been used by a civil-rights opponent that thinks that people who own and use guns has a psycho-sexual problem and wishes to marginalize them by so labelling them. And I’ve met a few. The term is highly insulting, as in my experience it is meant to be.

    Yes, the term “penis-fondler” would be non-specific, nonsensical and insulting. That’s kind of my point.

  49. 49
    RonF says:

    Grace, sorry about the mis-attribution.

  50. 50
    mythago says:

    Yes, the term “penis-fondler” would be non-specific, nonsensical and insulting.

    Also, kinda homophobic. That’s kind of everyone else’s point.

    Look, I get that you’ve only heard it an insulting context. Both Robert and I, who *are* gunfondlers, have told you that we’ve only heard that term in a positive, in-group sense. (That is, people use “gunfondlers” to refer to themselves in a group of other “gunfondlers.)

    That doesn’t make your experience wrong, but just for the novelty value, might you consider ours isn’t either?