I saw this for the first time today, and it totally cracked me up. And then it was stuck in my head.
For hours. And hours. And hours.
I now pass it on to you folks.
Also, I learned from The Curvature that Dennis Kucinich told a crowd of supporters that his first choice for vice-president in a Kucinich administration would be Ron Paul. This indicates to me that either Kucinich is nuts, or he thinks of his candidacy as a joke. I don’t know which it is: but in either case, the “should I be supporting Kucinich?” question is now answered: “Hell, no!”
I had an enraging experience I’ll share here finding out my partner’s company won’t tolerate gay men. It’s uncomfortable linking myself, but I’m hoping to be reminded there’s a few like-minded souls out there.
Amp, it’s entirely possible that DK is both nuts AND aware the his candidacy is a joke. If we assume that HRC gets high on meth and kills most of the other front runners with a axe and than craps on the flag before taking her own life all on national TV, than he might have a chance. At which point so would Ron Paul. In this strange new world a far left of center dem might find it easier to govern if he reaches out to highly principled republican candidate. They already agree on a somethings like the Iraq war and bad economic policy so they would have common ground.
Kucinich isn’t nuts. He’s a political fall guy, sucking up the oxygen and resources of the progressive movement in the United States.
Moderately Insane: Raising Feminist Daughters: GOOD FEMINIST BOOKS FOR GIRLS
These aren’t from me, they’re a concatenation from a variety of other places, mostly from a comment thread on Feministing, and, well… it is what it says. Books are awesome :)
Additional suggestions are encouraged! In a couple of days (when I have a moment) I’m going to rewrite the post and try to put all the comments in some sort of good and usable order: sorted by age, for example, and possibly by genre though that can be hard to define.
But for now, i’m trying to collect all the suggestions I can.
Listening to the clip, Kucinich’s reasoning makes sense.
Given that Clinton is owned and operated by Big $, Obama sold his soul by voting for the bankruptcy bill that was Citibank’s wet dream, neither of the two front runners appeal much to me. I’d rather see either Kucinich or Edwards in the White House than any of the others currently in the race.
What was his thinking on that?
Nan, all of these candidates have flaws, including Edwards, who (for example) has hired almost no women for his senior campaign staff, and who voted for the Iraq war. Plus, in the election, he’d be in more danger of being outspent against the Republicans than any other Democrat.
None of which says I’m anti-Edwards. I think he may be the best of the lot, actually. But I think he’s only marginally better than Obama, even though Obama also (as you point out) has flaws. I’d prefer either of them to Clinton.
As for Kucinich’s logic: The fact is, the Vice President could become president, and Ron Paul is the favorite candidate of hard-core racists. There are moderate Republicans I could live with as VP, perhaps, but Ron Paul isn’t one of them. That’s a deal-killer. Kucinich’s willingness to discuss putting Paul in the White House while ignoring the question of racism puts Kucinich out of bounds for me.
Sage, please feel free to post links to your own blog in open threads here whenever you want to! That’s what the open threads are for!
As for your link, I read it, and yes, that is infuriating. Especially his refusal to stop using “gay” as a pejorative at home in front of the kids. Usually I can see two sides of issues, but in this case you’re just right and he’s just wrong.
Usually I really, really hesitate to give advice to other people on their relationships. But after reading your most recent posts, I really hope that you get to a place in your life sometime where you feel you can dump that guy. Frankly, he sounds like he’s emotionally abusive. :-(
Sailorman: Cool post! When you do an updated version of the post, as you describe, please post the link to that too!
Well, we can hope.
Great detailed look at a recent study of maternal death in Britain:
Junkfood Science: Reality Check
The media coverage is focusing on the number of maternal deaths that are complicated by obesity; Sandy Szwarc looks closer and finds that “48% of maternal deaths were among women with BMIs<25 — 13% higher than the 42.3% they represented in the population,” and that “Among all of the direct maternal deaths, 64% were among women having received substandard care.”
Sailorman, I love the post. I added some thoughts.
Here’s an attitude we lefties need to get over: “If I don’t get a perfect candidate who agrees with me on every major and minor issue then I’m not voting at all! Nyah!”
Which is not a comment upon Amp’s disgust with Kucinich, because I totally agree on that. Ron Paul appealed to me at first, too, because I liked the way he made his fellow Repugs squirm. Then I dug a little deeper and found that he would do away with all of the things that I support – like, say, the department of edumacation – all for libertarian ideological wingnuttery. Dennis should know better. There are things that socialists and libertarians can see eye-to-eye on, compromise on, work together on – but that is far different from sharing an election ticket.
That’s sort of a straw man objection to ron paul. He’d support tha move sure, but it’s not central to his plan and it’s unlikely he’d spend a lot of energy trying to do that. But you’re right in the broad sense that he want’s a smaller central government.
Amp:
This indicates to me that either Kucinich is nuts, or he thinks of his candidacy as a joke.
Given DK’s general politics and RP’s general politics, this statement makes perfect sense.
The fact is, the Vice President could become president, and Ron Paul is the favorite candidate of hard-core racists. There are moderate Republicans I could live with as VP, perhaps, but Ron Paul isn’t one of them. That’s a deal-killer. Kucinich’s willingness to discuss putting Paul in the White House while ignoring the question of racism puts Kucinich out of bounds for me.
The problem here is that DK may not know about Paul’s racism. In the audio DK talked about Paul being principled: This accepts the view that Paul is a principled right libertarian, and if he happens to oppose some government initiatives to reduce racism, well, he also opposes having the government educate children or build highways, so maybe he is just being serious about his principles. There is nothing about right libertarianism that requires that it advance the causes of racists. Plus, it could be mitigated in some progressive’s eyes if they know of Paul’s opposition to the Drug War: I think most progressives (NOT liberals) would agree that ending the Drug War would be a greater anti-racisct step than passing nearly any affirmative action program.
Also, Paul’s view’s have become more racist over time. In 1988, when he was the Libertarian Party Presidential candidate, and I was a right libertarian, I interviewed Paul for my college paper and I asked him about immigration. His response endorsed open borders except for people with communicable deseases. His current platform of physically securing U.S. borders, agresively enforcing Visas, and repealing the 14th Admendment’s guarantee of citizenship to everyone born here is, I presume, the main reason he has been gaining hard-core racist support, and is also probably why he could not run again as a Libertarian, as those views are certainly NOT principled right-libertarian views. And Paul’s newly (more) racist views have not been played up by the media very much, possibly because they do not cause as much conflict in a Republican primary as being against the Iraq war.
So, yes, DK is probably nuts, and no, a progressive should not consider putting even a principled right libertarian first in the line to take over if the President dies. But if your main beef is that DK is considering someone as racist as Paul, you are possibly being unfair to DK. You are right about Paul’s racism, but DK might not know about it.
Some (all?) of those views mesh with the views of racists.
But as far as I can tell, none of those views is, itself, racist. That is, while they affect a certain class of people, most of whom are nonwhite, they do so because of the obvious reality that most people who are illegally immigrating are in that class.
I cringe to see that associated as a racist tactic. It seems like a smear campaign.
I’m not saying Paul’s NOT racist–I have almost no knowledge of what his own beliefs are. But I’m sick of having the “racism” accusation thrown about to describe any desire to address illegal immigration.
Heck, goals align. People have a lot of goals, and a lot of motivations, and it’s gotta happen eventually. i’d like better care for pregnant women, and so would a hell of a lot of folks who would (unlike me) prefer to force them to remain pregnant. Not my concern. Similarly, i’d like it if we did a better job controlling immigration, and a much better job controlling illegal immigration. So would a hell of a lot of folks who (unlike me) don’t really care about much other than keeping them brown folks out. Again, not my concern.
So long as I stay off their mailing lists, I’m not overly bothered if someone who is in a different political galaxy shares some of my goals. I won’t ask them for money, I won’t join in their marches, and i’m not going to let them dictate my policy through occupying a space. But what IS my concern is that people who disagree with my goals–and people who know damn well that there are a lot of different motivations behind many similar goals–deliberately conflate people like me with racist idiots.
“You are right about Paul’s racism, but DK might not know about it.”
Isn’t it the responsibility of a candidate to find out this shit before proposing a running mate?
I mean “Don’t worry, Dennis Kucinich was only ignorant of the public racist stands of the person he proposes putting in second-in-command of the nation” is hardly a good defense.
Which is precisely why I will vote for Kucinich in the primary. However, since it’s unlikely he’ll actually be on the ticket next fall, I may just take the “I’m not voting at all” stance at that time. But not because the other candidates aren’t “perfect” and don’t “agree with me on every major and minor issue.” I can’t vote for any of the leading Dem. candidates because I think they will actually make things WORSE than a having another 4 years of a Republican leader. They are all in favor a Universal Health Care Plan (as opposed to Kucinich’s Single Payer Plan). Whether they succeed in implementing one of these plans or utterly fail to do so, Americans will be worse off than they were before. Because we’ll either end up with a Universal Health Care Plan that will force people to buy into a profit-based, corporate run system, or the right will use their failure as a “well, we tried, it failed miserably, now we can get over this idea of health care reform.” Either way, we’re screwed.
And, I can’t really see voting for a Republican. So, yeah, it’s unlikely I will vote in November.
Sailorman –
1. I believe that efforts to “control” illegal immigration as a political issue is structurally racist in the way that I have seen “racism” defined here and elsewhere over the last few years. This is because I do not believe there is any hard evidence that illegal immigration causes any problems, except for a few slight ones that are a result of it being illegal. (Unlike say, the drug war, which I oppose and think is carried out in a racist manner, but agree that cocaine and heroin are extremely bad things.) Therefor, it seems to me that the main societal level motivation for keeping out all of those Mexicans is just to keep out all of those Mexicans. I think a lot of individuals support anti-illegal imigration causes who are NOT motivated by racism, but have just been deluded into thinking it’s a “problem” because everyone keeps calling it a “problem”.
2. With regard to Paul specifically, I have a really hard time believing that an otherwise principled right libertarian could support such measures for any reason other than (at least subconsious) racism. If you accept right libertarianism on either moral or ecconomic efficiency grounds, free immigration is as logical as free trade, and there is no moral or ecconomic reason to stop someone from getting a job and buying and moving into a house in your town just because of where he or she is born. Now, if you are not otherwise a right libertarian, and I do not think you are, that argument will not aply to you. But for someone like Paul, I really can imagine no motivation that could overcome his otherwise firm commitment to individual rights, property rights, and free markets enough to support the anti-immigration measures he does other than gut-level racism.
Mandolin –
Point conceeded. That adds support to the “DK is nuts” theory.
Decnavda, I’ve only encountered illegals in the US in passing, but in the UK illegal immigration is a problem because it lets employers get away with a multitude of other irregularities. If you’ve got illegal workers, there’s nothing to stop you from having an unsafe workspace, from paying less than the minimum wage, or from abusing your workers. (I’ve an acquaintance who’s an illegal immigrant from Russia – she was fired from her job last year because she wouldn’t sleep with her employer. And was he paying her minimum wage? Hell no.) I’m not saying bad workplaces would cease to be if there was no illegal immigration, but the shadow workforce allows for a multitude of sins, many of which affect consumers, and also the neighbourhoods the immigrants live in. Serious efforts to control illegal immigration – real workplace inspections, for example – would alleviate many of the associated ills, and with the law as it stands, you really cannot fight the other problems without cracking down on the hiring of illegals as you go.
Thene –
Looking back at my post, it was extremely stupid of me to say, “only a few slight ones [problems]”. They are few and slight only for citizens. Everything you state is true, but it all falls under the category of being caused by the immigration being illegal. If undocumented immigration were legal, and if hiring non-citizens without the proper visas was like paying subminimum wages, where it is illegal for the employer but not the employee, the undocumented immigrants could enforce their labor rights and those other problems would not exist.
Which also means there would be virtually no demand for undocumented immigrants, and the undocumented immigration would slow to a trickle. I firmly believe that the more the government cracks down on illegal immigrats, the more illegal immigration it causes, because it makes the immigrants more exploitable, thus increasing demand.
I still think Ron Paul is the least awful Republican candidate, simply because he’s the only one who doesn’t think the President should be a dictator.
On a less political note, that video reminded me of this one:
They’re Taking the Hobbits to Isengard
Another repetitive ditty that gets stuck in one’s head.
Y’all didn’t happen to do a lot of drugs, did you? Dennis Kucinich is, was and will always be a protest candidate in the Democratic presidential primary. We’ll have a real candidate by the time I get to vote in the primary. The only relevant question here is whether or not that candidate will take the right message from a DK vote (if we go to war with Iran I’ll find a way to hurt you, and how about guaranteed health care already?) Somehow I doubt any sane person will take the mention of Ron Paul as an endorsement of racism or a statement against the New World Order.
” Dennis Kucinich is, was and will always be a protest candidate in the Democratic presidential primary”
And if you were running a protest candidacy, and thus could without thought for actual political efficacy choose any person you wanted to be vice president, would you choose someone whose politics you were iffy on?
I don’t consider my taxes getting raised to send their kids to public school, pay for their healthcare when they show up at the emergency room, pay for them to be incarcerated when they run afoul of the law ( no, all illegal immigrants are not law-abiding, peace-loving folks who just want a chance at the American dream), and all the other costs that I’m forced to incure by them being here illegally to be “few and slight” problems.
Jamil, the children born here are US citizens. We have the same moral, and legal, obligation to educate them as we do any other citizen.
Jamila, in purely economic terms the costs you’ve mentioned are slight; pennies in comparison with the annual cost of Medicare or Medicaid, or the cost of the Iraq war. That said, I’m far from sure that the entire social cost of illegal immigration- the way it pushes local people and legal migrants into the burgeoning shadow economy – would vanish if an amnesty was implemented; the most risky of migrants would remain undocumented by choice – those with HIV or other infectious diseases; those with criminal records; those associated with banned organisations; along with others who had problems with the local language or who were employed in entirely illegal work (sex work, the drug industry, etc).
Making legal status more widely available would be great, but it wouldn’t completely remove the socially detrimental underclass. That’s a bigger job and it starts on the ground.
Well I wish you would give away your “pennies” instead of my “pennies.” In purely economic terms-whatever that means-the costs are not slight at all, while the cost of illegal immigrants to the nation as a whole may be less than the budget of the department of homeland defense that does not make the costs “slight.”
In California alone illegal immigrants cost billions of dollars in unrecompensed medical care, which has caused some hospitals to close, and incarceration for criminals that are here illegally.
Not all children of illegal immigrants currently attending school were born here. Texas is one state that gives illegal immigrants in-state tuition rates at public colleges and universities.
But the bottom line is that whether the children were born here or not, they would not be here if their parents has not come here illegally in the first place.
Jamila:
And I wish I could say that about the Iraq war. I can’t. Everyone has to pay up whatever they think about policy, and so I think we should quibble about the largest budgetary excesses first.
I hadn’t heard about those hospitals in California before. Could you provide a link or two about that?
Jamila, I disagree, the bottom line is that children born on US soil are US citizens. How they got here isn’t relevant to that fact. They’re here. They’re citizens, what do you want to do about them?
this is funny. I think they put a stereotype in every paragraph.
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/man_finally_put_in_charge_of
Okay. But in the meantime, if one appears to be more concerned over one’s pennies than one’s dimes, so long as those dimes go to wars and overturning habeas corpus rather than domestic assistance, and this is evidenced by what issues are paid attention to, where one’s money goes, which of the two major political parties is forgiven more readily, etc., then this issue is obviously greater than merely that of wanting one’s pennies back. But whatever the real issue is, great pains are taken to make sure it is never brought up, or if it is, never publicly or outside of an incestuous online usenet group – which reveals either a moral shame in one’s actual beliefs, or simple dishonesty. Since I don’t have much sympathy for dishonesty or morally shameful positions, I’ll sleep a lot better voting away these people’s pennies – after all, they’re just pennies.
As for Ron Paul, I’m curious. Does he just enjoy the *support* of racists and hate groups, or does he advocate positions in line with their positions and make coded appeals in their direction? Personally, I think he’d be better off if neither were the case, but the latter would be deal-breaker for me while the former would only be a deal-sourer.
sylphhead Wrote:
Then you really can’t be surprised when other people vote to use your pennies to fund wars and human rights violations. Just don’t forget that the “I-don’t-give-a-damn-about-your-money” attitude goes both ways and that those other people are sleeping pretty soundly at night also.
Whether Ron Paul is supported by racists and hate groups is irrelevant, and to imply that being supported by these groups is some sort of black mark on Ron Paul is an attempt to make him guilty by association.
And as far as I know, Ron Paul has never made any coded appeals to garner support from racists or hate groups.
joe Writes:
How they got here is entirely relevant to the current broken immigration system. There is nothing to be done about them being here now because, well, they’re already here. The question is: what do we do now to stop millions more illegal immigrants from coming here and having children that will place an even greater burden on an already weakened infrastructure of social services?
Thene Writes:
It’s the little things that eventually become big things so I prefer to quibble about all of the excess right now.
Sure.
From this link: “In the last two years, four other emergency rooms, most in low-income areas, have closed in the county, primarily because of the high cost of treating thousands of uninsured people, officials said.
”We’re mandated to treat anyone who comes in through those doors, regardless of their ability to pay,” Tracey Veal, a spokeswoman for the Northridge hospital, said.”
Another link.
“Overburdened by the uninsured and overwhelmed by illegal immigration (search), public health care in Los Angeles is on life support.
Sixty percent of the county’s uninsured patients are not U.S. citizens. More than half are here illegally. About 2 million undocumented aliens in Los Angeles County alone are crowding emergency rooms because they can’t afford to see a doctor.
According to the State Association of Hospitals (search), California’s public health system is “on the brink of collapse.” In Los Angeles County, patients can wait four days for a hospital bed and up to two years for gallbladder surgery.
“The hospitals are closing because of the totality of the uninsured,” said Dr. Thomas Garthwaite, director of the Los Angeles County Health Department (search). “If you’re legally a resident in California and you’re poor, you have a right to basic services.”
And here’s more: “The University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston may soon close its doors to poor illegal immigrants who need cancer care, a move that could increase the patient load in Harris County.
The medical school, unable to meet the demand for cancer care by indigent patients with limited state funds, is considering a policy that would require patients to prove they’re here legally to qualify for financial assistance. That would save the hospital system money but contradict its mission of providing care for the poor.”
[I’ve moved this comment, and several comments to follow, here from another thread, to avoid derailing that thread. –Amp]
Just starting to read the series…. but I still don’t think there is enough openness/opportunity for abused boys to speak and be mentored.
If anything, I have seen the heavy promotional push to normalize homosexuality making it more difficult for young men to come forward with their stories and to share their pain.
Here in Israel there is just one telephone hotline specifically for boys, and its not very well publicized either.
If anything, I have seen the heavy promotional push to normalize homosexuality making it more difficult for young men to come forward with their stories and to share their pain.
How so?
Ben-David: I also am curious to know what you mean when you say the normalization of homosexuality has made it more difficult for abused men “to come forward and share their pain.”
Most young men are straight, and do not want to be thought of as gay – yet this is the explanation that presents itself when the abused teen asks “Why me? Why was I singled out for abuse?”
The static of “acceptance” – together with a general hypersexualized environment that presents its own challenges even for boys who are not abused – makes it very hard to see the abuse on its own, instead of in relation to the other sexual stories/scripts that are being heavily promoted.
“Does this mean I’m gay” is one of the most common questions on the hotline I mentioned.
Except for male children who are abused by women.
“Heavily promoted.” Bullshit.
Mandolin:
I don’t know how old you are – but I did not grow up surrounded by such a heavily sexualized popular culture as what we have now.
When I was Bar-Mitzvah age, you proved you were a man by teasing the girls, being good at sports (and in Jewish circles, being smart).
Now we hear kids at that age – boys and girls – talking about oral sex and “friends with benefits”. While standing under Bruce Weber photos blown up to billboard size to sell Calvin Klein underwear.
Proving yourself a man in this generation is something completely different than it once was – and to my taste, often coarser and more emotionally deadening.
Are you’re saying that in the 1960s, before there was a significant push for the acceptance of homosexuality, this never happened? No boy abused by an adult man ever questioned his own sexuality?
Religious conservatives are, it’s true, heavily promoting a sexual script in which adult gay men “turn” younger men and boys gay by having sex with them. I’m trust you criticize them doing so and remind them that by doing so, they may be causing some abused boys to needlessly question their own sexual orientation.
Apart from religious conservatives, however, I’m not aware of anyone of any consequence promoting a sexual script in which straight boys are turned gay by contact with gay men. That’s certainly not the sexual script promoted by the “acceptance” narrative, as I assume you agree.
To review:
1) It’s not true that abused boys did not doubt their sexuality before the LGBT movement began; there’s not even any evidence that such doubts in abused boys have become more common as a result of increased acceptance.
2) It’s not true that those who promote acceptance of homosexuality are promoting a narrative in which abuse turns straight boys gay. (That narrative is proposed only by anti-gay conservatives.)
So your argument appears to be nonsense piled on nonsense.
Jamila – thanks for sharing more details about those hospitals. I don’t feel it’s surprising; legal migrants self-select for good health, as short-term work visas often require you to be insured, and long-term ones usually require medical examinations and a checklist of vaccines. (The last US visa I had required insurance, so I got it, but my latest one doesn’t. Insurance has gone from being a necessity to a when-I-get-round-to-it thing entirely because the visa options available to me changed when I finished university. Perhaps a lot of currently illegal, uninsured migrants would go for the insurance-required visa option if that visa path was open to them.)
But, however open legal migration was, potential migrants with the poorest of health would wind up either undocumented, uninsured or both. One feature of health spending is that roughly 75% of the cost is spent on 15% of the patients – in fact, the most afflicted 1% cause almost 25% of the costs. Visa medicals very sensibly attempt to weed these people out; but if they do get to the USA, either illegally or on a visa route that didn’t require a medical, I’d imagine they find it hell to get insurance.
The question I’m circling round is, do we prevent hospital closure by
a) reforming healthcare funding,
b) cracking down on illegal immigration, or
c) reforming the immigration system to get more migrants insured, immunised and documented?
Probably a combination of all three.
Ben-David, the increased sexualization of popular culture, and the acceptance of homosexuality, are not interchangeable. Contrary to what conservatives often believe, homosexuality is not about sex and nothing but sex.
It’s quite possible to have a popular culture that is both extremely sexualized and extremely rejecting of queers; it is likewise possible to have a popular culture that is very un-explicit in how it depicts sexuality but nonetheless very queer-accepting. (There’s not a lot of explicit sexuality in Heather Has Two Mommies.)
While I also find Ben-David’s “heavy promotional push” very problematic, and I do not want to deny the implications of that language that Amp has critiqued, there is a point n Ben-David’s post that ought not to get lost. It would not surprise me to learn that he is entirely accurate when he says that the most common question asked by young men who’ve been abused is whether or not it makes them gay; we should not discount the effect that homophobic narratives have on those young men, nor should we lose sight of the fact that it’s not only religious conservatives who promote that narrative.
When I was in my early twenties–which is more than twenty years ago–and went looking for information in the library of the research university where I was a graduate student on the sexual abuse of boys, the only book I could find dealt with a survey that had shown, among other things, that the majority of people in the US believed that a boy who had been sexually abused by a man would, or was highly likely to become gay. More to the point here, as I remember, it was not that respondents saw the male abusers as gay men who were trying to “turn” young boys. Nor did it matter whether the abuse was “gentle and pleasurable” or violent; even boys who had been violently raped were understood by the respondents in this survey to be highly likely to end up gay.
The question of a culture’s ideas about male homosexuality and how it relates to the experience of men who were sexually abused as boys, or young men who’ve been sexually abused, is an important one that needs to be looked at in a wider context than the one set up by Amp’s very apt responses to the implications in the language of Ben-David’s comment.
One brief follow up: As far as I know, there is no similar “turning” narrative about women/girls who have been sexually abused (and I mean by this abuse that is not rape), i.e. that it will make them more likely to become lesbians. I am aware that there used to be, and probably still is, a narrative in which it is “not surprising” that a woman/girl who has been raped might “end up” as a lesbian, but not that the rape will “turn” her in the way that the correspoding narrative about boys suggests male-abused boys will “turn.”
And there is an interesting asymmetry here in the view of boys who have been abused versus the view of girls. If a girl who has been abused turns out to be a lesbian–and I am writing this purposefully from within the narrative; I am not suggesting a real, causal relationship–that would suggest that the experience of rape was something so horrific that it caused her to reject her own heterosexuality. On the other hand, if a boy who is sexually abused by a man turns out to be gay, that would suggest that the experience of abuse at the hands of a man was something that somehow “attracted” the boy, that sex with a man was something he wanted to repeat.
Don’t have time to write more about the implications of all this; for now I just wanted to point out the difference.
Ampersand (ignoring the rather heavy-handed “I trust you agree” attempts to tell me what to think):
Can you cite studies, or are you just assuming that there is no evidence because it suits you?
The much higher profile of homosexuality in the culture would inevitably lead to increased fears by abused boys of being labelled – simply because it is a more palpably real part of their experience. Homosexuality was previously an amorphous fear that shadowed terms like “sissy”. Most boys never saw an identifiably gay person. Now it is everywhere.
Further:
Instead of telling me who is claiming this – can we examine the facts of the claim?
Does initial, manipulative/traumatic homosexual abuse impact the abused boy’s path to developing a sexual identity?
We know that even absent abuse, initial sexual experiences leave strong imprints which impact future sexual behavior. Add psychological/physical abuse to that, and you have a potent, traumatic experience.
And we also know that most abuse is done by family or friends – the people who already have a formative influence on a child’ s persona. The abuser is often a father, uncle, cousin, teacher, or mentor – so the abuse often comes from relationships that are supposed to provide the boy’s primary masculine identification.
We also know that almost 20 percent of gay men were themselves victims of abuse – a figure that is twice the rate in the general population (data comes from the well known in-depth study conducted by GMHC).
So:
The assertion that early, traumatic homosexual experience does not impact the abused boy’s sexual identity is wishful thinking that contradicts everything we know about abuse and its effects, and about sexual identity formation.
Here again I must talk about PC orthodoxy trumping reality – gays have been assigned to the “A-list” of cultural victimhood, nothing unsavory can be said about them or their lifestyle. So we will make a bubble-like exception to everything we know about abuse and its effects.
So: who’s talking nonsense?
One consequence of the mainstreaming of gayness is that many of us do see the gay world – and its many shortcomings – close up. And when we look we see that the gay community is far more ambiguous than you assert in its attitude to sexual initiation/mentoring of young boys .
One of those shortcomings is the foot-dragging, far-from-universal denouncement of NAMBLA – and the embrace of an “outreach” agenda that includes sexual mentoring of teens. If you want to dismiss this using the rhetoric of “turning” young men is your business: the fact is that the phenomenon exists. There have already been instances in which parents objected to the agenda, materials, and activities of school-based “support groups” for gay teens.
Another unavoidable feature of the gay communities I have observed (NY, London, and some other places I’ve lived) is the strong focus of a significant minority on pretty young boys (“twinks'”), and the culture of exploitation that springs up around it.
And since most abusers were themselves abused, sexual victimization of minors is likely to be more of a problem in the gay community – with its higher proportion of abuse survivors – than in the general community.
To ignore these problematic realities – or even dress them up as “support for troubled teens” – is PC blindness.
Ben-David,
In the immortal words of another moderator who shall remain nameless, you are “a sick fuck.”
And now, you and your sickness are invited to get the fuck off this blog.
I’d say good luck to you in your internet travels — but really, “fuck you” sums it up better.
I am leaving Ben-David’s post up for the moment, in case any of the regulars feel like picking apart an example of despicable homophobic incoherence.
If a single progressive or gay person wants this gone — then it’s gone. Say the word, and B-D will be kittened.
Okay, okay, I admit it.
I wasn’t born straight. No, during my formative years I was as gay as a purse full of rainbows. It was only during High School, after I succumbed to the “sexual mentoring” of Beth, my math teacher, that I was “turned” to straightness.
Oh, how I resisted. Over the next four years I memorized “The Wizard of Oz”, I enrolled in modern dance classes, and I bleached my nether regions. I even joined the MCC and tried to “Pray Away the Straight”. It was no use: I had been ensnared by the Allure of the Vagina.
And so here I am, twenty years later. I “pass” pretty well — I’m in a loveless gay marriage with another closeted straight man (my “beard”), live in a little bungalow in West Hollywood, and spend my evenings on the Stairmaster at the gym pretending to check out the other guys. But every so often, I slink off to a straight bar and get picked up by a woman at random, and end up back at her place having dirty, guilty, incredibly hot sex. (But never in the butt…that’s too gay.)
So beware, parents! Keep a close eye on your children’s school teachers! You never know when one of them might turn out to be a heterosexual in disguise!
Manual trackback:
At That Which Deranges the Senses:
I just want to chime in once more and say that, while B-D’s homophobia is as despicable as Mandolin asserts, his comment provides a perfect illustration of an intellectualized version of the attitude towards boys who have been sexually abused by men that I talked about in my two comments above. It is that attitude, not the existence of a gay male community in any degree of visibility, and not even of organizations like NAMBLA–despicable as it is–that, in my experience and to my knowledge, causes for male survivors the kinds of identity issues that B-D talks about. We should not lose sight of this fact in the reasonable and desirable rush to condemn what B-D wrote.
Mandolin –
I . . . I . . . don’t even know where to begin.
I never would have heard of NAMBLA were it not for South Park and “PC” right-wing nut job crazy mo-fos.
That said, in the immortal words of Dan Savage, DTMFA.
{This has been a public service brought to you by your possibly-not-so-friendly cranky lesbian.}
‘Sexual mentoring of teens’ is a really weird red herring, because it’s dragged out as being this evil thing queer outreach groups do….whereas in reality it’s a common, almost-inescapable practice among heterosexual people. The ‘prom date’ culture. The way elder relations will coo and ask if you’ve got a boyfriend/girlfriend yet and what you do with them once you’ve got them. The way you go to PG-13 rated films and see straight people romancin’. The way parents are expected to do The [Relentlessly Heteronormal] Talk and if they don’t, let’s blame school for not doing it for them. (I never had The Talk – as a teenager I had no parenting – but school sex ed? Heterosexual from start to finish).
So why this terrible oh-noezing when queer groups make any attempt at providing the same support to non-straight teens?
Edited because I just had a sad throught: how likely is it that, of all possible social groups, straight men are the least likely to come forward about abuse that they’ve suffered?
There’s three men in my life who I’ve talked to about abuse. Two are gay, and both will, if the circumstances call for it, wear it on their sleeves. Anyone who knew them well would know. The third was straight, and I wouldn’t’ve been surprised if I was the only person in his life who knew.
The plural of anecdote is not data. But still. That 20% figure? Suppose it went for all male children, but some, for whatever reasons, found it hard to speak truth past their straightness?
Never in my wildest dreams did I think my, “How so?” would lead to rationalizing (nor to prove that his assertion isn’t true, rather than proving that his own assertion is true) of that magnitude. Is there a corollary to Godwin for NAMBLA (or just pedophilia) when referring to gay men in a comment thread? With folks like Ben-David around, there is no hope for my hope in humanity.
Thene:
I also do not have statistics, but I can tell you that when I read the survey I talked about above, the fact that it seemed to be saying that most people would assume my experience of abuse had somehow “turned me gay” definitely gave me pause in terms of my thinking about telling people. It was less that I was afraid someone would think I was gay, though, and more what the assumption that the abuse had “turned” me said about how people understood both the nature of the abuse and my experience of it.
RJN – I would also think, without any true study of the matter, that boys who suffered sexual abuse at the hands of older men would have been likely to think, “What’s wrong with me? What brought this on?” rather than “I must be gay” – in time periods before society at large was more aware of the existence of homosexuality. Meaning, I guess that in the latter example, the boys would have a name to attach to their feelings, and in the former, not. And not, of course, that attaching said name means it’s the case, any more than “What’s wrong with me?” means that there is actually something wrong.
(Did that make any sense whatsoever? :/ )
Bonnie–
You may be right, and what occurs to me now, quickly, as I rush off to dinner, is that it would be interesting to think about the ways in which the responses of boys who are sexually abused are shaped by society/culture and how that shaping has conspired/conspires to keep the abuse itself invisible. I mean to look at that as a historical process.
Don’t know if that made much sense either, but I have to go.
Hmm. My boyfriend was sexually molested by a girl as a young kid. Does this mean he might actually be gay, but the abuse turned him straight??
and i don’t know about that 20% figure, but what about the fact that 25% (and suspected more) of women are sexually abused? what does this mean of their sexual orientation?? are 1/4 of women’s sexuality suspect?
Casey,
No one here, not even B-D (odious as the rest of his assertions are) is asserting that sexual abuse actually “turns” anybody anything. We are talking about cultural attitudes.
Well, I’m thinking of how to respond through my blog to my elected official’s accusation at a public meeting that I committed ethical violations of some sort when I criticized his role in the selection of committee appointments for the city council and the ethics complaint process. It might take a while to figure out how to respond.
Being a local blogger has its own hassles and rewards. I’ve experienced a lot of negative response to my blogging but also positive including in some interesting places. Although I write about police misconduct locally and other places, I was asked by the leadership of over 380 officers to read something I blogged aboutinvolving union labor negotiation issues. That’s the thing about blogging is that you can’t always know who’s reading and what will come next.
Life’s always filled with events. Never boring.
Ahhhh Harry Potter Puppet Pals! Voldemort Voldemort ooooooooo Voldie Voldie Voldie Voldemort!
“And there is an interesting asymmetry here in the view of boys who have been abused versus the view of girls.”
But they are both meant to support the same overall conclusions. First, that heterosexuality is natural, while homosexuality isn’t. Secondly, that male dominance/female submission is so natural as to be unremarkable.
As you point out, the amount of actual violence present is irrelevant to the narrative of “homosexual experiences” in childhood resulting in being gay as an adult. Likewise, the amount of violence is irrelevant to the “turned lesbian” narrative as well. It does not need to be rape, but more often simply having been “wronged” by a man, that supposedly turns girls into lesbians.
And of course, female abusers are completely absent from both narratives.
The asymmetry comes from the fact that the gender of the abusers stays constant while the gender of the abused changes, rather than the gender of the abused alone. When female abusers are brought up – which is rare – the narrative is very different.
(not that I really think anyone here doesn’t realize all that, I just figured that if this topic was really deserving of discussion, then that really needed to be said)