I remember Joycelyn Elders. The woman was appointed to the position of surgeon general, and when asked about masturbation at a conference on AIDS, she replied, "I think that it is part of human sexuality, and perhaps it should be taught." It was a perfectly ordinary comment about something nearly everyone does or has done, and she got fired for it, by Bill Clinton. It was part of my disillusionment and disappointment with the Democrats.
Now look who Obama has appointed to a team to assist with the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico: Jonathan I. Katz. He's not quite a climate change denialist, but the next best thing: he agrees that the climate is warming, that it's anthropogenic, but tells us that it's good for us, and we ought to stop research on it. At the same time, he's doing research on geoengineering to counteract global warming. I'm confused. I think he's confused.
But here's what made me think of Joycelyn Elders. Katz is a self-admitted, flaming homophobe, and he's proud of it. Literally. He comes right out and says it while blaming gays for killing innocent people (the deaths of gays, of course, were there own damn fault).
Unfortunately, the victims are not only those whose reckless behavior brought death on themselves. There are many completely innocent victims, too: hemophiliacs (a substantial fraction died as a result of contaminated clotting factor), recipients of contaminated transfusions, and their spouses and children, for AIDS can be transmitted heterosexually (in America, only infrequently) and congenitally. The icy road was lined with unsuspecting innocents, who never chose to ride a motorcycle. Guilt for their deaths is on the hands of the homosexuals and intravenous drug abusers who poisoned the blood supply. These people died so the sodomites could feel good about themselves.
What of those cursed with unnatural sexual desires? Must they forever suppress these desires? Yes, but this is hardly a unique fate. Almost everyone has desires which must be suppressed. Most men and women think adulterous thoughts fairly often, and find themselves attracted to members of the opposite sex to whom they are not married. Morality requires them to suppress these desires, and most do not commit adultery, though they feel lust in their hearts. Almost everyone, at one time or another, covets another's property. They do not steal. Many people feel great anger or intense hatred at some time in their lives. They do not kill.
I am a homophobe, and proud.
This is what I don't get. Joycelyn Elders could make an accurate, honest, and relevant comment about the fact that masturbation is a part of human sexuality, and that if we're concerned about sexually transmitted diseases, it is a reasonable alternative outlet for sexual urges…and she got fired for it.
Jonathan Katz writes stupid and wrong comments about how gay people are killers, and says that they should completely suppress their sexual urges…and he gets a distinguished appointment from the Obama administration.
However, there is some good news here. People complained, and the administration listened: Katz has been dismissed from the position. Maybe there is some hope after all.
Now we just get to sit back and wait for the wingnuts to start complaining about the exclusion of bigotry.
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(the deaths of gays, of course, were there own damn fault).
their*
It's good to know that he was dismissed at least.
"Almost everyone has desires which must be suppressed."
Anyone else get the feeling this is yet another self-hating homosexual homophobe?
That was a depressing article until he got fired...
Maybe he should appoint someone like Jeremy Jackson
http://sackler.nasmediaonline.org/2007/ile/jeremy_jackson/jeremy_jackso…
"...and relevant comment about the fact that masturbation is a part of homosexuality."
Wanted to alert you to this typo. If homophobia wasn't at the root of supposed "Bible-supported" anti-gay positions, it would probably be as hot a topic for Christians as their roughly 50% divorce rate (also proscribed in the Bible).
Copy editor alert: "Just desserts" is probably the most commonly misspelled expression in the English language.
It's "just deserts." It's derived from the term "deserve," not from the piece of pie after dinner.
Carry on.
Not for the faint-hearted: Violence against LGBT people.
This is what homophobia enables. For shame.
Shala:
Ding ding ding ding ding... We have a winnaaaar!!!
Republican? Check.
Raging homophobe? Check
Rentboy.com account? Check.
Wetsuit? Check.
Dildo? Check.
It's only a matter of time...
Almost everyone has desires which must be suppressed. Most men and women think adulterous thoughts fairly often, and find themselves attracted to members of the opposite sex to whom they are not married.
Except, you know, that heterosexuals wanting to commit heterosex with partners they're not married to are able to have heterosex with their marital partners. It's not like they're being completely denied, and it's not exactly our problem that they're tired of humping the old ball and chain.
I love Jocelyn Elders! On the Penn & Teller show Bullshit, on the episode about abstinence, she was one of the voices of reason. My favorite quote, paraphrased: "80% of people admit to masturbating, and the other 20% lie."
GENIUS!
Can't you just sense Katz's balls tingling as he writes about those "unnatural sexual desires"? It's surely only a matter of time before we find out that he hires someone to "carry" his "luggage".
It's "just deserts." It's derived from the term "deserve," not from the piece of pie after dinner.
The common typo refers to delicious food therefore your argument is invalid.
Argument Ad Esculentus!
Ding ding ding ding ding... We have a winnaaaar!!!
Oh gosh! They love me, they really love me!
What do I win!?
People are uncomfortable talking about practical issues when it comes to sex (they don't like hearing the government saying things that make them uncomfortable)... people are not uncomfortable with being homophobes, so if they spew out crap like Katz did, it's not a big deal.
On the Jocelyn Elder issue, a British comedian at the time commented "Only Americans would need lessons in it [masturbation]".
Now I don't condone, agree with or find the anti-American/appeal to silly stereotypes element of that joke at all, but the idea of wanking lessons at school just tickled me....maybe I should rephrase that....I mean I found it amusing.
"Now, class. Where did we get to in our last lesson? Ah yes. Frottage..."
Monty Python couldn't have written it...oh wait, they did.
As for the other issue: Katz got sacked for being a homophobe? Good.
Louis
Homosexuals kill people? They're certainly under-represented in the prison populations - I guess the judges and juries are too terrified to convict - or else the claim that they're killers is just another Lie For Jesus (tm). As for the homosexuals having "unnatural sexual desires", history suggests otherwise. But hey, if you can deny global warming may be a problem it doesn't take much more effort to deny that homosexuals aren't unnatural.
Speaking of Lying for Jesus, the pope pulled a swiftie. He still denies his role in promulgating child rape and he's trying to distract people by pointing to the Irish. Oh, look - those filthy Irish priests really make baby Jesus cry - look at how they rape kids and cover it up! Shame on you Irish, shame! It reminds me of my great grandparents' stories of how they were treated when they came to the USA from Ireland early in the last century. The Filthy Irish always make a great scapegoat, maybe because they talk funny. They were worse than Mexicans back then too - they weren't only there to steal your jobs and rob you in the middle of the night, they were going to steal your women too.
As long as we're correcting typos, the name is Joycelyn Elders. I had to find a photo of her once (for a textbook on human sexuality) and was puzzled by the lack of options until I noticed that I was misspelling her.
OK, I'm glad this guy was kicked off the panel, I'm stunned that he thinks this way and I think he should be shunned and isolated by any decent society. It also seems from looking at a bio of him that he's doing some work on boundary layer hydrodynamics, which is the only reason I could see him being on this panel. But I see no sign that his work involves actual oil and salt water or has any practical application ready for the Gulf oil gusher, so he probably wouldn't have added much to the panel, if anything. But for a though experiment, let's say he's an expert in the behavior of oil spills and has just completed research that demonstrates a new oil cleanup method that is far more effective than anything done before and that can save the Gulf ecology. Imagine that this research has yet to be published and Dr. Katz is the only one who knows enough to make it work for cleaning up this spill in time. Would we still want him kept off the government payroll for his noxious views if he could save the day? Discuss.
Re Joycelyn Elders -- The issue wasn't merely masturbation yes or no, but whether the federal government should be in charge of it.
:)
He got dismissed, but on the other hand he got hired in the first place. I'm sure Obama's advisors thought hiring him was a good bipartisan gestures. If so, they all need to be fired too.
That's the first time I hear someone proclaim he's proud to have a pathological fear of something.
(Fear is actually an acronym: it stands for Fear Ends All Reason)
Reached for comment, Katz said, Oh, bugger!
As for the suggestion that gays are deadly, have you ever seen queens bat their eye lashes? Those eye lashes are deadly. Send a few queens to Afghanistan and the war would be over in two shakes of a lamb's tail, or something like that.
The administration isn't 1/10 as progressive as the wingnuts accuse it of being, more's the pity. :/
correct me if Im wrong but I thought her firing had to do with her "its okay to smoke crack cocaine but tobacco users must be jailed" comment more than the masturbation comment.
Gary Busey?
@ Abdul Alhazred | May 18, 2010 8:52 AM
Re Joycelyn Elders -- The issue wasn't merely masturbation yes or no, but whether the federal government should be in charge of it.
This was a separation of powers issue. Elders had to be fired to avoid dragging the Supreme court in to settle the squabble. As a part of the executive branch, Elders needed recognize that masturbation is the exclusive purview of Congress.
I'm getting sick of this reaching across the aisle thing (if that is what this nomination was supposed to be). It makes no sense when the people across the aisle will never compromise and have continued to see you as the anti-christ (literally).
@24 :lmao:
broboxley #22
No... you are wrong. I remember this incident quite clearly. It was immediately after those comments in 1994 that she fell out of favor with the White House, and those comments are widely regarded as the impetus for her dismissal.
In fairness, if you have a citation that backs your claim, I'd like to see it, of course.
For what it's worth (I know it's not always the most reliable source for factual information), Wikipedia agrees with me.
Off Topic but Ted Turner claims the oil spill is gods work
http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2010/05/17/ted-turner-wondering-if-god-is… always new rabid environmentalism is a religion :-)
Would we still want him kept off the government payroll for his noxious views if he could save the day? Discuss.
If you're so keen on the topic, start your own blog.
Otherwise, fuck off.
I hate glee club dictator ploys.
This sort of commentary in reference to god is all too common, yet never all that well thought out.
In any other walk of life, a person who goes out of his way to devastate the life of another person or other people, just to make a point, would be considered a psychopath or perhaps even a criminal.
These people would never think "Ahhh... so you wanted people to stop buying milk from cows injected with hormones, so you poisoned the milk and killed dozens of people... how very wise, sir!"
But apply that logic to god the way ol' Ted Turner here has and it's just another way of showing how much god loves us. Barf.
@Aquaria - Who the hell pissed in your Wheaties this morning? Was it saying "Discuss" that got to you? I'll admit that struck me as a poor choice right after I clicked submit. Or did you just not like the thought experiment? You don't have to play, nobody does, you can all ignore it, it just happened to be where my brain was going at the moment.
@Celtic_Evolution #27 hmm she made the comments not long after her son was caught dealing but most cites back you up on the masturbation comment being the prime cause of her firing with just a very few cites mentioning the coke is better than tobacco comment
I agree
wait, what was this story about?
OK, here's the thing: I'm not a homophobe - my attitude is that consenting adults should be able to do whatever the heck they like to and with each other, and I have precisely ZERO interest in what happens in anybody's bedroom but my own - but there is an element of truth to his statement. Except the "reckless behaviour" isn't GAY sex, it's UNPROTECTED sex, with large numbers of partners. It's kind of taboo to point this out, because it gets conflated with homophobia, but it's true. I understand there has even been a bit of a resurgence in this behaviour, since according to one quote I recall having seen "AIDS is no big deal now that they've got the [drug] cocktail".
I'm not saying it's the fault of the gays that AIDS exists, but I am saying that some of the gay community took (and takes) part in a high-risk lifestyle that could readily be predicted to result in some sort of fallout. Fault for the fact that innocent people got hit with some of that fallout could be argued to rest with those who indulged in the high-risk lifestyle, whether said risk is unprotected sex or IV drug use.
I remember Jocelyn Elders too - I was working on the Senate committee that held her nomination hearings. What I remember thinking at the time was relatively simple - she was clearly outspoken, and when it came to public health issues, she wasn't interested in holding back.
(I also remember her confirmation hearing, when she had a ton of friends & family in the hearing room, and she wanted to introduce them all individually to the Senators. It was a cute moment.)
I think the reason she was attacked so ferociously wasn't that she took a position and said it plainly; I think it was that she wouldn't back down from it when criticized by the shame-into-submission crowd. She was an african-american woman who grew up in the south in the 40's and 50's. I think there were plenty of people who felt she "didn't know her place" and when she wouldn't back down from them, President Clinton threw her under the bus.
oh, and the Katz thing? just another opportunity to trot out the "fierce advocate" line.
I'm not saying it's the fault of the gays that AIDS exists, but I am saying that some of the gay community took (and takes) part in a high-risk lifestyle that could readily be predicted to result in some sort of fallout.
There are no straight swingers after all, and my idea of a good Friday night out is to dress in leather, do pnp, and get banged by 50 men, right?
Yes, the hetero community never takes part in high-risk lifestyles that could lead to some sort of fallout.
It's that it's those damn Homos doing it that's the problem. Nevermind the high risk shit we do behind closed doors, its the high risk shit they do that we should focus on.
@35
Heh, Fierce.
Talkingpointsmemo.com had a profile on the group of geniuses gathered to come up with some kind of out of the box solution.
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/05/mission_impossible_ob…
Katz is the last one profiled, under the heading, "The What-Am-I-Doing-Here? Guy: Jonathan Katz"
And that was before his boner fides were revealed.
And rightly it should.
The reason it does is because bringing that up (unsupported mind you) ignores the much larger population of heteros that has a percentage of its population that do exactly the same fucking things.
Wow, I almost had a hivemind with BigDumpChimp.
It'd be best to retract your statement UXO.
That, and the fact that they're completely and irrevocably insane.
It's like listening to the wisdom of your senile old grandpa in the family council when he thinks he's really a squirrel.
These people should be put in a comfortable, quiet room, with no access to scissors, knives or dangerous chemicals so that they don't harm themselves. If they behave, they may have crayons.
If we're going to blame somebody for AIDS because of risky behavior, it's not the open homosexuals we should be pointing fingers at, but people like Katz (I assume) and the other noisy homophobes who always turn out to be closet homosexuals. They are the ones having anonymous unprotected sex and then bringing the disease home to their unsuspecting wives. When people can be honest and open about who they are more likely to form long term relationships, or at least to get to know people, maybe ask them a few questions about their sexual behavior and test results, and discuss condom use. It's when some self-loathing right wing fool needs to get his rocks off that he lies about his behavior, doesn't tell his partners where he's been, etc.
FIFY.
BigDumbChimp*
whoops
@Shala, Rev. BigDumbChimp, and whoever else wants to jump on:
I never said that. As a matter of fact, I specifically listed IV drug use as another possible high risk behaviour, and I don't think anybody's suggested you need to be gay to do drugs.
Hetero swingers also engage in high risk behaviour. However, it's also true that hetero transmission of AIDS is much less common. High risk, sure - but not as big a contributor to the original AIDS epidemic.
I also never suggested all gays indulge in high risk behaviour - I specifically said some.
Come on! Do you think that straw man arguments like that are going to last any time at all in this forum?
Yeah, PZ, please acknowledge and correct the deserts/desserts thing.
I don't have any guns or religion to cling to, so the least you could do is allow me to embrace my pedantry.
Yeah... there was some interesting stuff going on back then... but I think you have the order mixed up...
IIRC, she made the comments about possibly legalizing drugs in 1993 during her (which got her a "stern waring" from the white house as I recall)... it was about a week after that, that her son was charged, in a cocaine "sting" in which he was busted for dealing. He claimed he was set up and so does Jocelyn Elders... she holds to that to this day. The whole thing was fishy, but I don't claim to know how much of either side's claims were true.
Either way, it wasn't those comments that ultimately led to her dismissal... it was the "masturbation" one.
However, it's also true that hetero transmission of AIDS is much less common.
citation needed
What is wrong with you? Why are you interested in blaming people for "contributing to an epidemic," as if the people themselves with AIDS, be they gay or not weren't suffering enough? Who are these "innocent people" victim to a "fall-out" from teh bad gheys? So the faggots somehow "deserve" it more?
And don't sit there looking all shocked. That is precisely the implication of your statement, whether you like it or not.
Fuck off.
really?
You single out gays here. That's exactly what you were doing.
Citation needed indeed.
First this assumes you mean anal sex.
Secondly this assumes a higher transmission rate because of that
Thirdly this ignores the fact that many heteros also engage in anal sex.
I am patient when it comes to fools. UXO, if you are willing to retract or prove both of your statements, I will avoid ripping into you with my fangs, which are becoming very sniny right now.
If you get to strike three, it's dinnertime.
The usual fundie lies. The vast majority of AIDS cases worldwide are OUTSIDE the USA, 33 million of which the US share is about a million. It is a mostly heterosexual STD with half the patients being women. Up to a third can be children infected perinatally.
In Uganda, using WHO statistics, it is calculated that 90-96% of HIV/AIDS is transmitted by...heterosexuals. Few people bother to demonize and lie about heterosexuals for some odd reason.
HIV/AIDS in the USA is about 1/3 heterosexual transmission and IV drug use. It is heading towards the world norm of mostly heterosexual and IV drug transmission.
The virus got into the human population AFAWK by people hunting and eating chimpanzees and sooty mangabeys. The lesson here should be to not eat your very close cousins.
Yes and I didn't say you did, I specifically mentioned high risk behavior.,
Something common to both hetero and homosexuals
Shiny shiny mirror.
Katz says, "Experience with HIV shows that the environments of homosexual promiscuity and intravenous drug abuse can readily turn a single infection into an epidemic."
Uxo, says " However, it's also true that hetero transmission of AIDS is much less common. High risk, sure - but not as big a contributor to the original AIDS epidemic."
Amongst other things, this completely ignores the fact that the epidemic in Africa is almost completely heterosexual, and it is a whole lot worse than the US. Is unprotected gay sex riskier? Yes. But it's also a lot less common than unprotected hetero sex, which seems to be doing a great job of spreading AIDS without any help.
The world doesn't end beyond New York and Los Angeles.
UXO, "gay" lifestyles have absolutely nothing, in and of themselves, to do with the transmission of AIDS. Gay people are no more or less promiscuous than straight people. And in the early days of AIDS, nobody really knows how many heterosexuals had the illness, since it was just *assumed* by doctors to be a disease they called GRID-- gay-related immune deficiency. With a pathogenesis in TEH GAY. People with similar symptoms who were straight were likely ignored and other causes of death were likely printed on their death certificates.
Just look at Africa, and China, where AIDS hit far harder and faster than it did here: the AIDS pandemic in those countries was propagated through typical heterosexual "lifestyles".
So give me a break. You most certainly are spouting heterosexist bullshit that I've heard a million times all couched in "I'm no homophobe, but..."
Raven @53 - exactly. Thanks.
What is "unprotected gay sex"?
If by unprotected "gay sex" you mean unprotected PA sex (anal intercourse), it's not just gays who do that. There's nothing "gay" about anal sex, it just so happens that plenty of gay men don't even have anal sex.
You know a day just isn't complete for us LGBT people unless we've smoked a million unprotected dicks.
It's like cigars for us, we go into withdrawal without them and start muttering "p-please...need organ inserted into...orifices...".
UXO the aids epidemic was a lot of people having unprotected sex before it was diagnosed and transmission vectors found. In africa education is still behind and the epidemic is spreading in almost a complete hetro environment even today.
For every gay person that died of the disease during its heyday before medicine was effective a hetro person died but cause of death was listed as the opportunistic infection not the underlying cause. Proof of that is the current infection rates in the US are balanced through the population
@UXO
But why bring them up at all, when earlier you said,
If it's unprotected sex, then every group does it and there's no further reason to bring up the gay element. I'm genuinely confused.
UXO -
You are trying to mask agreement with the general spirit of Katz' mental masturbation by cloaking it with token caveats and qualifiers.
Stop it. There's no reason to defend anything he said there, in any way, on any level. Risk of spread of AIDS is increased by unsafe sexual practices, among both hetero and same-sex interactions. Period. There's nothing of any relevance gained by trying to even make the argument that it's in any way tied more significantly to homosexuality, unless of course your goal is vilification of homosexuality and unapologetic homophobia.
I would back off this line of argument were I you... just a friendly suggestion.
@Naddyfive, #58:
You're right, and thank you. This is an illustration of how deeply embedded prejudices about gay people are - even well-meaning people like Colin can fall into them without even thinking about it (and I'm certain he is a well-meaning person).
Raven, you're quite right regarding transmission in Uganda. My understanding is that is largely due to the folk remedy (!) that having sex with a virgin cures AIDS. I certainly DO demonize such folks, and any who put others at risk by their behaviour - regardless of what behaviour that is.
I call it like I see it. Not all gays are sweetness and light made flesh, and if that offends, well too damn bad.
It's just not a day for this LGBT person until I hear a heterosexual man who's probably stuck his dick in anything that walks at every possible consensual opportunity since he was 13 scapegoating "gay lifestyles" for an illness that affects multiple millions more straight than gay people in the world.
If I hear someone call anal sex "gay sex" one more time, I'm going to take them by the ear down to Georgia or Alabama on prom night, so they can see for themselves that anal sex ain't just fer the queers no more.
Guy is just lying. It isn't even a good lie, anyone who took 10 seconds to use a search engine can find out the truth.
Fundie xians in the USA have higher rates of STDs than the general population. They hypocrisy of these people is always amazing.
Not all gays are sweetness and light made flesh, and if that offends, well too damn bad.
Then I suggest you eat a bowl of Frosted Dicks.
All heterosexual people aren't sweetness and light made flesh either you fucking scoundrel. Why are you singling out gay people specifically?
What the fuck is wrong with you? How can you be so wretched? You picked the wrong forum for this shit buddy - you're gonna get righteously ripped.
@Celtic_Evolution: I'm really, truly, not. I despise bigots. I was going to say, when there is some truth it should be acknowledged, but perhaps I'm wrong there. Maybe there actually is no requirement to give them that acknowledgement, and for the record: I don't support hate speech in any form.
You picked the wrong forum for this shit buddy - you're gonna get righteously ripped.
You could even say we're going to...
...Rip him a new asshole.
YEEEAAAHHHHHH!!!!
Well no shit, but the fact you single them out completely ignoring the much larger population of heteros that percentage wise would have a higher number of not all sweetness and light made flesh (whatever the fuck that means) shows that
1. you are a homophobe
2. you're an idiot
3. you're unconcerned with being anywhere near factual or honest
4. you're somewhat of a monster
Bwa-hah-ha!
Wait...you mean if I say those two words, you're going to treat me to a FREE LIVE SEX SHOW in an exotic locale?Am I supposed to be dissuaded by that?
"My understanding is that is largely due to the folk remedy (!) that having sex with a virgin cures AIDS."
Wow this guy is a little hard of logic.
How could a folk remedy cause AIDS in a population that didn't have it yet? The folk remedies came *after* the initial spread of AIDS among straights in many African nations.
They're not helping, of course, but if it hadn't been for stupid conservafundie pricks voting the Bush Administration into office, and lobbying for "abstinence only ed", we could've used actual sex education to curb the transmission of AIDS in Africa a long time ago.
As it is, I think Bush and co. should be tried for crimes against humanity for withholding this information and, basically, becoming complicit in genocide. But that's just me...
Josh @ 63
I am. I'm also gay. I was actually just going to comment on, and agree with, naddyfive's excellent observation.
Oh please. If you can't grasp why you're being a fucking jackass, or even try to understand, then I have to assume that you are a jackass and are meaning to convey the point you are conveying. You are singling out one small portion of the population because of some prejudice you hold while ignoring the much larger population that would fit the very characteristics you are harping on.
@ myself...
This was meant to be qualified with "in terms of spread of AIDS through sexual activity"... sorry I wasn't more clear there... I know IV drug use and other means are significant factors in the spread of AIDS...
@Colin:
Excellent. I shall forward your name to my colleague, Locutus of Gay. Prepare for assimilation.
Colin, I knew what you meant, but I think it's important to be careful how we say things, because it just gives people like UXO more kindling for their hatefires...
I know plenty of people like UXO, and I really despise them. If you're going to be homophobic, please be open about it and stop acting like such a fucking coward. I hate Fred Phelps, but you know what? He's honest in his hatred at least.
You, on the other hand, can just go right ahead and fuck off! A thousand LGBT of the Pharyngula empire descend upon you!
True. But irrelevant.
Not all heterosexuals are nice people either.
Not all people who mow lawns are nice people.
Not all scientists and MDs are nice people.
Not all humans in any group are nice people.
There isn't a coherent point here at all. Speaking of evil people, IMO, it is hard to top religious fanatics in general and fundie xians in particular in the USA. They seem to produce way more than their share of internet trolls.
I dealt once with HIV/AIDS denialists. A mixed lot. One group was fundie xians who thought it was their holy mission to lie about the cause of AIDS in the hope that gays would get it and die. Encouraging and hoping people kill themselves seems like a strange activity for a religion from our 21st century perspective. Until one looks at history. They used to do the killing themselves.
Some of them were creationists affiliated with the Dishonesty Institute including Phillip Johnson, one of the founders.
Most of them though, just seemed to be crazy.
Prepare for assimilation.
All aboard the man train.
@naddyfive : I agree.
It's really all about condoms. In the seventies and early eighties, when all known STDs were basically curable with relative ease, there wasn't much reason for a homosexual to use a condom (OK, I may be seriously overstating the risk equation regarding curable STDs, I wasn't having any kind of sex then). Heterosexuals were far more likely to use condoms to prevent pregnancy or to be married. So sure, AIDS took off among homosexuals and IV drug users because they didn't know their behavior was risky. You can't blame them, how on earth could they have known they were spreading a disease no one knew existed? In Africa a lack of sex education and access has limited condom use among heterosexuals, so you see way more heterosexual AIDS transmission from the outset. None of it has anything to do with being gay, it has to do with knowledge, condom use, and monogamy, or lack thereof. That's why AIDS in the gay community in the U.S. was controlled so much more quickly than AIDS has been controlled in Africa (OK, it hasn't realy been controlled in Africa at all). The truth is that the gay community acted very responsibly when they learned what AIDS was and how it was transmitted. They educated each other, used condoms, and got the spread under control with amazing speed. We should all thank the gay community for the actions they took to educate each other and the straight world about AIDS prevention. They made it impossible to ignore by being vocal, and they took the right action to stop its spread. Unlike religious conservatives who didn't want it talked about. Gays aren't to blame for AIDS, they're the heroes of the story of AIDS in America. The spread of AIDS in Africa can partially be blamed on the lack of vocal, united gay community teaming with others to spread the word about AIDS.
That was long and rambling, but I really like where it ended up.
Haha@PZ
Come to think of it, that might also make a pretty good premise for a porn.
Can't think of a snappy title though. Somebody?
Hey don't forget about us Pharyngula heteros descending him/her too!
@PZ #73 no you will be observing redneck birth control methods in action. Strictly a zoological expedition
Hey don't forget about us Pharyngula heteros descending him/her too!
maybe I should have rephrased it to something like "a thousand rational people" or "beat up on the crazy guy" :p
Deliverance II: The Pharyngulation
on
ON
damn it
naddyfive #85 Prom Queens meet the knight of the cornhole
Snappy title? "The devil went down to Georgia".
Although, you know, if we changed "to" to "on" it would make an even better porn title.
That'll teach him to mess with the Great Pansy Conspiracy!
Uh, Katz doesn't have any unique superpowers talents needed for the Blowout Petroleum situation, does he?
At the same time, he's doing research on geoengineering to counteract global warming. I'm confused.
Hey, a grant's a grant...
When you look at the real history of AIDS in the U.S. and the gay community, given that no one even knew it existed until the mid eighties, and even then it wasn't really understood how it spread, and given that there is a long symptom free incubation period, during much of which tests could not even determine infection, to blame homosexuals for spreading AIDS in the U.S. requires the assumption that there is something inherently wrong with being gay, than homosexuals were committing a sin and that that is the reason that they are to blame for the spread of AIDS. Absent this assumption of gay sex being inherently wrong, there is no way to blame homosexuals, they just didn't and couldn't know what was happening. Therein lies the reason that attempts to blame homosexuals for the spread of AIDS are so evil, because they start from this fundamental assumption that it's wrong to be gay.
Well, they do say that AGW researchers are only in it for the money. Guess they've talked to this guy.
@Pierce R. Butler: From @idiotiddidit's link buried far above, Katz's contribution in his own words:
So the answer to your question is, no, apparently he does not have any unique talents needed.
Gus Snarp@84-
Thank you for that reminder. Blaming gays for AIDS is like blaming the canary in the coal mine for the methane and carbon dioxide. The spousal unit & I lost several good friends during those early years.
Blaming gays for AIDS is like blaming the canary in the coal mine for the methane and carbon dioxide.
Those canaries and their fucking agendas!
One of the reasons why geoengineering is picking up is the usual. Money.
I haven't seen any estimates on how much it would cost to remove gigatons of CO2/year on a planetary scale yet.
Probably in the trillions or tens of trillions of dollars. The earth's atmosphere is a big volume.
With that amount of money being thrown out there, some people are going to get very rich and a lot of people are going to have good paying jobs.
If people have to drive less, AGW doesn't exist and it is all a hoax by climate change scientists. These same people all of the sudden believe AGW is a serious problem and we have to build giant factories to remove CO2 out of the atmosphere and sequester it. What's changed? Who is going to design, build, and run those factories? Big industry and big business.
Who knows, we may actually need them some day. If we can afford them.
Lesbians are, by your logic.
I'm not entirely unpleased that Mr. Katz's comments have drawn the negative attention they deserve, but ...
What if he is qualified to consult on this oil spill? What if he is one of the best minds available? I don't know that he is, and I don't know why he was selected. I have, however, always maintained politics should not be permitted to influence science.
So I would ask for reconsideration on his merits as a scientist, whatever they are. I'll admit that his unscientific social opinions and apparent support for the climate denialists do not weigh in his favor, and might be sufficient to dismiss him as a wingnut. But is he?
Cheers,
Mack
Mack #102
I'm sorry, but you can not pretend that as a representative and the public face of a government agency or task force, views like this do not matter! His position was not only a professional but a political appointment as well. You can't have political appointees representing government agencies putting forth despicable viewpoints in the public sphere without consequence... to do so would equal tacit approval of those viewpoints.
This man represents the Obama administration in his specific appointment, and what he says and does publicly reflects upon that administration, and might give insight into his thought and decision making process, all of which are going to concern the Obama administration in this case, as it rightfully should.
Never heard of him.
From reading the thread, apparently his qualifications and knowledge base weren't all that special, impressive, or relevant.
It's not like we don't have very many scientists and engineers in the USA.
Homophobes in government:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/10121618.stm
...Let's hope America never regresses to that level. I just wish I were confident that it won't.
Thank you Mr. Katz for saying what was on al our minds. Well...at least starting to say what was on our minds. Fell free to add these to the list of things Homosexuals should be blamed for:
lisps
male annorexia
Banana Republic
the Cubs World Series drought.
Helicopters (face it. Those things are really gay!)
footed pajamas
The Greek economy
Socks and sandals
@Mack: I think he'd have to have exclusive access to the solution to the problem to be acceptable, and that's unlikely. If there are other equally qualified scientists in the appropriate fields, then they should be chosen first. As it stands, he does not appear to have any particular aptitude for the job, as evidenced by his own words (see my post at #97) and it is highly likely that he was appointed for purely political reasons to provide "balance" on the team. There's no way such a homophobe should be appointed to a scientific panel for purely political reasons when his research does not bring anything useful to the table or when there are other choices at least as qualified. If he was the guy who could fix this and we couldn't do it without him, maybe, but he's not.
Uxo the Uninformed spewed:
Simply untrue. The most common method of HIV transmission is sex between a man and woman.
Not sure why you felt you had to say otherwise. Could be simply ignorance I suppose, though that is a poor defence.
@Mack #102
One of the reasons I hardly ever comment here is that by the time I read through 100 comments, I find that someone has already asked the question that I have, and it has been answered.
Sometimes 2 or 3 times . . . by people that didn't bother to read the previous comments.
Stupid blockquote...
re 102:
So I would ask for reconsideration on his merits as a scientist, whatever they are.
PZ did provide links to Katz's current bio. Since you are concerned about his merits, why don't you go through them and let us know how he is the best mind for the task. "He who proposes, disposes". Don't ask others to do your homework for you.
Just to get you started: http://wuphys.wustl.edu/~katz/
Because girls are made of sugar and spice and everything nice, obvs.
Gus @ #84 & #95 - very nicely put. I agree completely with your assessment.
However, while I am not personally active in the party scene, I have several good friends who are, and they are all alarmed at what they are seeing: A substantial increase in high risk behavior in general and unprotected anal sex in particular.
Even worse is that this change in behavior appears to be associated with a growing belief that HIV is completely treatable and therefore not serious.
I googled around a bit, but could not find any recent statistics one way or the other. But it seems like a new push to educate people about the need for safe sex may be in order.
It certainly is. I have no stats at hand, but it's widely known in the gay male community that there has been a substantial and alarming increase in unprotected male sex among very young men. It appears largely to do with the perception that protease inhibitors make AIDS magically go away. Of course, this says nothing about how one is supposed to get these expensive drugs if one has no health insurance. In addition, they don't work as well for everybody, and they come with their own nasty side effects (certainly better than dying, of course).
There's a real generational disconnect. Young gay men have never had the experience of watching their friends die, and of having to fight for research on treatments for AIDS. I fear it's going to take another wave of tragic deaths to get the party boys to wake up. I hope I'm wrong.
Thanks for the second-hand anecdote about the "party scene", BoxNDox.
That sure was enlightening.
Gus Snarp @ # 97, raven @ # 104, et al - Let's not rush to judgment that Katz has nothing to contribute to this problem.
According to my back-of-the-envelope calculations - and someone with more expertise in viscosity and density will have to work this from scratch - it seems that plugging oil pipes may require an ick reaction very close to that of condensed homophobes. They swell up when packed tightly together, y'know...
Here in the UK there is evidence that unprotected sex in becoming more prevalent amongst young hetero-sexual adults as well. The has certainly been an increase in the rate of STIs amongst the under 25s.
Josh, I've heard that there's some misinformation about inhibitor drugs "curing" AIDS, instead of just bringing down the viral load, among younger guys. I've also heard that younger people are just generally in a lower risk group. This has been widely publicized, making people immune.
But BoxNDox is overstating the case quite a bit. There's the tendency among European people I know to go from "we need to continue to be vigilant" to "ZOMG gay men are getting AIDS on purpose, it's all the rage now!"
I had one Dutch gay man (a self-loather, tho) claim that men are getting "seroconverted" on purpose. I mean, ok, maybe that's some kind of marginal kink, but I don't think it's a general *trend*...
Meant to say "immune to the idea that they should use protection"...
There's a real generational disconnect. Young gay men have never had the experience of watching their friends die, and of having to fight for research on treatments for AIDS. I fear it's going to take another wave of tragic deaths to get the party boys to wake up. I hope I'm wrong.
If I had to take a guess at another reason why it would be becoming more common, it'd be because of people having no support groups with regards to the gay community. Coming out, especially in the United States, is a terrifying idea. When someone has few others to look to in regards to gay sex, they might start to take bigger risks.
Essentially, the religious right is helping to spread AIDS by keeping gay boys in absolute fear. I was originally going to say that that would be counter-intuitive to what the right wants, but come to think of it, they want LGBT people like us to die out, don't they?
Young people also have the tendency to think nothing bad can ever happen to them.
@ Mack
Problems this size are solved by teams of people and I somehow doubt that Mr. Katz is the only qualified person available. However, I wouldn't be surprised to find out that others trying to solve the problem shared his sentiment. That is one of the big draws for me to come and read this blog. People here share my views, which are opposite of Mr. Katz. From my experience the views of the people here are still in the minority.
@Naddyfive:
I don't mean to say anything one way or the other on claims anyone else is making; I'm only referring to my and my friends' experience with this issue. I'm not claiming there's a trend to get seroconverted on purpose. I'm only reporting what I've observed, and that includes (to my eye) an alarmingly widespread lackadaisical attitude among young gay men about safe sex.
Right, Josh- I believe your concerns are real and make sense. I was just expressing frustration and surprise at those other types of people I've known. Basically, I just think it's strange that many gay people now are focused so much on gay "barebacking" and scoring rhetorical points about how it needs to end that they sort of overlook straight barebacking and feed into mainstream notions of gay ultrapromiscuiuty in the process.
I worked at the UCLA AIDS Center as a staffer from 1985-1990, and was an early AIDS activist before that. I have a bit of insight about those days.
Blaming high-risk sexual behavior for AIDS is true enough, but realize that the worst STD at the time was herpes. Also, late 70's culture-- heterosexual as well as male homosexual-- still considered sexuality as relatively safe fun.
When AIDS hit the gay male community, there was a lot invested in pretending it was only a gay male disease. To claim that gay men brought their own demise and then infected the world is not only homophobic, it also denies the historical fact that the ONLY education going on around AIDS and its risk were from gay men themselves.
There was ZERO funding for education, ZERO funding for health research, and ZERO support from the heterosexual political and medical establishment, whose attitude at the time was pretty much "they're just faggots anyway, might as well just let them die."
Safer-sex education well into the 90's was by and large privately funded. It wasn't until the late 80's that medical research found its heart and started doing some serious basic and clinical research, thanks in large part to educated medical researchers-- mainly gay men, but plenty of heterosexual doctors-- who were pissed off at how a major medical crisis was blatantly ignored, many who sacrificed their careers just to get heard.
It's disingenuous to dismiss the facts that gay men were pretty much left to die on their own, left to combat this disease using their own resources, and then have assholes like Katz blame gay men for the AIDS epidemic. Instead of blame, these judgmental shits should be damned grateful that they did manage to marshal a lot of resources and money to create AIDS treatment, education and support centers that provably reduced the rate of infection among gay men and were able to respond rapidly and without prejudice when AIDS later hit the heterosexual community in America, a part that gets ignored since it disproportionately hit poorer communities and sex workers.
I hope I never meet this Katz guy. I'd end up spitting in his hateful, weaselly face.
I was, and I wasn't even born yet. That's just how cool I am.
We do this with all sorts of issues. The spread of AIDS in the U.S. was dramatically slowed, drugs appeared to make it no loner automatically mean a slow tortured death, and people stopped talking about it. Slowly people stop being aware and become more likely to make bad decisions. I remember a while back there was an attempt by some groups to get people talking about AIDS in America again, but it seems to have failed. Now Americans just think it is an African or Asian problem. This is certainly troubling, and it's bound to increase AIDS prevalence in the U.S. But then the big push to get rid of real sex ed in U.S. schools by the religious right doesn't help either.
Especially true if you come from conservative background. Many gay men have virtually no support, and thus have no knowledge of protecting themselves when they engage in sex. So if something does happen to them, they get slut shamed. (It's the same thing they try to do to women with the whole abstainance only education. They love it when they fuck-over people they don't like.)
(Off topic, but did anyone else read "Proud Homophone gets just deserts"?
@ Mojave66 - fantastic post.
Let's not forget our sapphic sisters. :-) Lesbians were an indefatigable ally in AIDS activism, just as they've done so much heavy lifting for the gay community on many fronts.
You know what else is really annoying about UXO? (I know, as if you needed more reasons...)
How he says this: "Hetero swingers also engage in high risk behaviour."
As if the "default" mode of hetersexuality is monogamy, whereas clearly all gays are "swingers". Forget the fact that the word swingers itself implies that marriage is the default form sexual relationships must take, so that any polyamorous sex is "swinging", that is, swapping partners with other marrieds.
Everything he says is encoded through and through with heteronormativity. Language betrays the real bigots, no matter what they claim to feel. Hopefully, he's learned a thing or two from this discussion. But I'm not going to hold my breath.
naddy5@85:
The Alabama Purity Ball.
Especially true if you come from conservative background. Many gay men have virtually no support, and thus have no knowledge of protecting themselves when they engage in sex. So if something does happen to them, they get slut shamed. (It's the same thing they try to do to women with the whole abstainance only education. They love it when they fuck-over people they don't like.)
I've noticed that a lot of homophobia is nearly equivalent to misogyny as well.
I've also been told by my parents that if I turned out to be LGBT I'd be kicked out of the house. Isn't it wonderful how much love people can hold for their children?
If I ever come out, it'll be when I'm on my own. No chance of me getting screwed over then (well, in the technical sense...)
Hopefully, he's learned a thing or two from this discussion. But I'm not going to hold my breath.
His kind is known to run away at the first sign of adversity. I just wish he'd be open about his homophobia, it would make things a lot easier.
I checked out Katz' CV. He appears to be a competent astrophysicist with numerous publications in various peer-reviewed journals, but with several screws loose when it comes to matters closer to home. His views on nuclear nonproliferation also appear to be ... interesting.
He doesn't seem like a good choice for this sort of panel. And Katz himself doesn't appear to know why he was chosen either. In the same interview quoted previously, he said:
Now, as to the entirely hypothetical and clearly academic question of, "If he had the answer would we be prepared to use it", my response is, "Duh! Of course we would". Just because William Shockley was a eugenicist and racist is no reason to boycott transistors. But the reality is Katz had nothing to offer and in hindsight at the very least, should not have been chosen.
On a side note, given how many of those on the panel have some connection with nuclear weapons, I have to wonder if some sort of nuclear option is being considered.
Yeah, I've noticed that many homophobes believe that female have inferior qualities.
I've also noted that many homophobes also believe that the only thing that LGBT people do is have sex. My homophobic mother, for example, was did not want me to go camping because she believe that all I would do there was have sex with other men. (you know, because there's absolutely nothing else to do while camping. It's not like one can hike, or enjoy nature, or make smores.)
UXO opines:
What happened to blockquote today? It's just not working...
>Let's not forget our sapphic sisters. :-) Lesbians were an indefatigable ally in AIDS activism, just as they've done so much heavy lifting for the gay community on many fronts.
I'm a lesbian, our history in this checkered, alas. There were plenty of women who brought a lot of knowledge from the women's health movement that was organized in the '70s, both straight and lesbian. Then there were a lot of lesbians who were warning me not to use the same straw as a gay man and making horrific arguments that we shouldn't support gay men because they presumably wouldn't have supported us in the same boat. Fortunately, education works when you're at least a little bit open-minded, and most lesbians HAVE a heart, so by the late '80s there were a plethora of lesbian AIDS activists and allies.
The influence of AIDS activism on lesbian politics is a master's thesis I'll never do although I've always wanted to, sigh.
>I've noticed that a lot of homophobia is nearly equivalent to misogyny as well.
I'm betting there's plenty of master's theses on this!
@Gyeong Hwa Pak:
Don't you know "camping" is just a euphemism? It's like "hiking the Appalachian trail", or "lifting the luggage", or "sharing the Gospel".
#139
Or "making s'mores".
Well that's certainly why I became a Boy Scout leader. When I go to camp in the summer, it's a round-the-clock lubefest. Of course, being a straight woman, I can only watch the writhing pile. That and teach boys to identify birds and insects. And perform my annual re-reading of The Ancestor's Tale so as to conteract any Boy Scout religiosity cooties.
At least one good thing came out of the Joycelyn Elders debacle: The Foremen/Roy Zimmerman song You Can't Come In 'Cause I'm Firing the Surgeon General.
@ UXO #34
You know, I was with you right through this statement, because UNPROTECTED sex with large numbers of partners does contribute to the spread of AIDS, and it doesn't matter if the partners are heterosexual or homosexual because both run the same risk of contracting/spreading AIDS through engaging in unprotected sex of ANY KIND. But then your statement goes right into implying that it's homosexuals who engage in this kind of risky behavior in large numbers. How disappointingly predictable.
I grew up in the 80s - I remember how slow the public was to acknowledge that AIDS wasn't just a "gay disease" and I remember friends of older siblings/cousins being cavalier about protected sex because "AIDS is only a gay disease." As if AIDS was the only STD they had to worry about.
Heterosexuals are just as likely (or not) to have unprotected sex with new partners - stupidity isn't dependent on sexual preference.
Now I don't see how this is a euphemism. All you do is break the marshmellow by jabbing a stick into it, then work it until you get a warm white liquid, then shove it between two firm graham crackers, then lick the gooey mess off your hands and. . .
Oh dear god. . .
Yeah, the UXO's of the world are pathetic sick kooks.
The origin of HIV is in Africa sometime in the early 20th century. People got it from hunting and eating chimpanzees and sooty mangabey monkys, the original hosts.
The vast majority of it worldwide is transmitted by heterosexuals. In many countries, up to 1/3 of the patients are children who were infected perinatally.
So if one wants to fix blame for creating the human pandemic there are some real and obvious candidates.
1. People who hunt, kill, and eat chimpanzees. If they had practiced safe butchery by using barrier gloves and cooking them well done, this wouldn't have happened. Better yet, don't eat endangered species who are our close relatives, which to me has always seemed way too close to cannibalism.
2. Heterosexuals.
3. Evolution. The virus had to evolve to jump to and adapt to another host species, H. sapiens.
4. People having children in poor countries without basic medical care. Perinatal transmission is simple and cheap to prevent.
There are some minor later players to blame. One was the Reagan administration that dropped the ball. We know how to stop emerging pandemics. We just did that with SARS and the swine flu. The trick is to get in early and stomp it out hard before it spreads out of control. They just called it the gay disease and ignored it.
There are also a lot of heroes who fought it and beat it back in many first world countries. The activists, gay and straight who screamed and demonstrated and yelled for years on end. The governments who finally allocated enough money for research and education. The scientists and MDs who have developed over 30 different anti-HIV drugs of multiple classes that turns a lethal disease into a treatable chronic condition and also severely inhibits transmission.
And then there are the UXOs. Dumb bigots crippled by toxic religion who toss off a few obvious lies and are otherwise irrelevant except as good examples of defective humans that even many or most xians would find reprehensible.
But really, in the end stuff happens. We are part of the biosphere. Who is to blame for TB, malaria, polio, hepatitis A,B,C, flu, colds, GI pathogens and so on?
Mr. Fire -
You forgot to finish that sentence with "gigity".
@naddyfive #130
Oh for fuck's sake! I must have missed that one while posting my previous response.
Preference for monogamy does not preclude responsible sexual practices. The people I know who engage in non-traditional relationships - "open relationships"/polygamy/etc. - are extremely careful about taking protective measures - using condoms, regular STD testing, etc., sometimes more so than some of my serial monogamy or one-night-stand friends.
Also, not all heterosexual couples prefer monogamy and not all homosexual couples prefer the "open relationship."
I know this should all go without saying, but UXO's posts have reflected a lot of heteronormative assumptions about sexual relations for both heterosexuals and homosexuals. The bottom line is that sex without precautions is a stupid practice to engage in, regardless of whether you're heterosexual or homosexual, male or female, prefer monogamy or multiple partners.
When you find a regular partner(s), get yourselves tested and until then, use a condom or Cthulhu will cry, and who wants to be responsible for making the Elder One weep?
No, but I'd hardly encourage a president to appoint Shockley as head of a government Science Agency or Task Force, either.
#148 - Encourage, of course not, but in the hypothetical case where he had unique domain-specific knowledge to contribute, well, things aren't so clear.
What is now clear is that in the case of Katz, he had no such knowledge and looking at his CV, it is difficult to see why anyone thought he did. So this comes across as rewarding a kook for his kookiness. Bad choice.
I've been told the same thing. And my dad's even fairly liberal. Homophobia is just stupid.
Yup... nothing like telling your children in no uncertain terms that they'd rather you be a miserable, deceitful self-loathing liar than LGBT.
Now those are family values you can really embrace!
Not surprised. I've heard of it happening here and there. Someone did a study of street kids and IIRC, a lot of them weren't runways. They were pushouts, some because they were gay.
I've also heard of kids being threatened with being pushed out because they weren't buying the parent's religion. This seems to be a common way to split families up these days. I'm sure the fundie xian family values crowd thinks it is all wonderful.
No religions and LBGT are the latest in generation gaps.
Not seeing why people feel the need to tell their parents anyway. It is none of their business and they most likely don't want to know.
Raven--
Is it none of a high schooler's parents' business who s/he is dating, or wants to date? Or is it only "none of their business" if the classmate they're pining after is of their own sex?
The entire culture is pushing heterosexual dating on teens: just look at high school proms.
There are, unfortunately, practical reasons not to come out in high school, but there shouldn't be. Or are you saying that it was also none of my parents' business who I dated at 19, or that the person I moved in with at 21 was not just a platonic friend, or that weddings are inappropriate because they require people to at least strongly hint about their sex lives to their parents?
It's also not always as straightforward as whether someone wants to tell their parents: maybe the parents ask "so, why don't you have a boyfriend" or get suspicious of how much time their kid is spending with a classmate. Or maybe the kid tells a classmate, who mentions something to her parents, who go to church with the kid's parents, and they freak out. Or someone (and again, it can be a friend of the parents) sees the kid kissing a same-sex classmate. Or the parents find that the "Billy" they've been happily listening to their daughter chatter about is "Billie" short for Wilhelmina.
You know, reading over Katz' original rant again, it seems that what's really going on is sour grapes. He seems genuinely annoyed, based mostly on the stereotype/fantasy that gay people are wildly promiscuous and enjoy "consequence free" (read: pregnancy only when on purpose) sex lives, that straights have to spend so much time and energy supressing their desires. And that's just NO FAIR!
I've noticed this attitude a lot in bigoted straight men and women. I think it's bald ressentiment, Nietzschean style. They see someone else's enjoyment, they imagine it's more free and uninhibited than their own- they see that people can be happy who've thrown off society's norms- and they get all green and see red. Because really, deep down, they wish they had the guts to do the same.
A lot of the people we are talking to and about are adults. At that point it is their life and parents can try to control their lives. Usually without a lot of success and they may never have much of a relationship with their kids again. Several of my friends from the 70's era haven't talked to or seen their parents in 30-40 years.
It is sad and unfortunate. And after 40 years, neither the parents or kids care anymore.
In college, the parents of one of my friends read her journal. And jumped to the conclusion that she was a lesbian. Her father was enraged (homophobic panic???), grabbed her around the throat, started strangling her, and almost killed her. Her mother pulled him off.
She left the next day and hasn't had much contact with them since. The irony. She is a heterosexual who has had more than a few boy friends and as far as I know, has never had a female lover.
A common mistake is to confuse child abuse with parenting. It doesn't work.
The Hershey's, old boy. YOU FORGOT ABOUT THE HERSHEY'S!
I thought it was deserts for uninhabited and desserts for what you get. Obviously I was wrong.
Incidentally, we can pretty well say that everyone has masturbated, even if they don't remember it: sonograms have caught fetuses masturbating and the accompanying vibrations may indicate orgasm.
I have only admiration for a dad I know who, when his daughter told him that she was a lesbian, mildly replied that he should have figured that out himself and basically apologized for his lack of perceptiveness. Otherwise, it was a non-issue.
Fetal masturbation: OK, there is ONE record that I can easily find: fetal masturbation, so we can't say it's common.
"Anyone else get the feeling this is yet another self-hating homosexual homophobe?"
Is there any other kind?
raven @ 155 & 152:
Lots of people don't have such awful relationships with their parents (at least prior to coming out). Sometimes they don't know how their parents will react.
Often, they just have an emotional attachment to their parents, and care about them enough to be honest with them. Sometimes the parents turn out to be shitty people.
I've no doubt this guy is a moron, but is he referring to a particular incident here or what?