Class On Homosexuality

[Jake Huether]

"OK, now everybody try to visualize some handsome naked men and get aroused. How are we doing people?"

I have no doubt that they wouldn't be that blunt.

But there are "homosexual" issues that are less than moral, yet seemingly innocent on the outside world.

One topic I KNOW they would discuss would be AIDS (seems harmless enough). And how do you think they are going to persuade people to avoid AIDS? Do we honestly believe they are going to promote abstinance and chastity? Hah! Regular sex-ed doesn't even promote abstinance!

Since homosexuality is so intrecately related to ones sexuality (uh - duh), this class (in my humble opinion) will be nothing more (nothing less) than a sex-ed class for homosexuals. This is not a "good" thing.

[_bc]

One topic I KNOW they would discuss would be AIDS (seems harmless enough). And how do you think they are going to persuade people to avoid AIDS?

I don't think an advanced class in cultural studies is going to try in the least to persuade anyone to avoid AIDS. College seniors already know how to avoid AIDS, they don't need someone with a PhD in cultural studies to teach them that. It's just not what an academic education is about.

There are many other questions on AIDS academics can discuss and teach about: How did it affect the self identification of homosexual men? How did it affect their experiences with homophobia? How was the AIDS epidemic portrayed in gay literature or theatre? Did the movie 'Philadelphia', change perceptions of gay men by other people? How did public discussion of AIDS as a homosexual disease affect the coming out experiences of gay men? Their working lives? The experiences of their children?

I'm not saying these questions are going to be discussed in the course we're talking about, they are just examples of what an arts faculty can talk about concerning gays and AIDS without ever 'teaching the students to be gay'.

I still maintain that this is an advanced course at a serious university. Expecting it, out of nothing but prejudice, to be about sex-ed or a gay recruitment fair is ostracism, and certainly does not reflect the love we are called upon to have for our fellow men.

Since homosexuality is so intrecately related to ones sexuality (uh - duh), this class (in my humble opinion) will be nothing more (nothing less) than a sex-ed class for homosexuals.  This is not a "good" thing.

So are you saying it's impossible to talk about homosexuals without either promoting or condemning homosexual acts?

Is homosexuality nothing more than the act of sex between people of the same gender?

[hyperdulia again]

bc makes me wanna move just to take the class

[Jake Huether]

So are you saying it's impossible to talk about homosexuals without either promoting or condemning homosexual acts?

Yup. You can't seriously tell me that whoever teaches this class will simply present historical facts without interjecting their own bias or opinion. My dynamics teacher couldn't even do that. How is a "homosexual" different from a heterosexual when they DO NOT act on their passions? There is no difference. The class is based on the ACTS, because it is the ACTS that define a homosexual "culture".

Is homosexuality nothing more than the act of sex between people of the same gender?

No, but close. Homosexuality is nothing more than the tendancy to be attracted to someone of the same gender. Blip that out, and they're the exact same as a heterosexual. But you could cover that topic in less than a day. A complete semester on "homosexuality" is sure to cover the ACT of sex between people of the same gender. And like I said, it's the ACTS that define a "lifestyle" or "culture".

It isn't the same as, say, a class on femininity, or a class on African Americans. Gender and skin color do not lead, in and of themselves, to sinfull acts. They don't produce a "tendancy" toward something sinful. Homosexuality IN AND OF ITSELF leads to (not necessarily ends at) sinful acts. By studying the "tendancy" toward sin, they are more likely than not going to cover the sins (especially when considering that the person teaching will probably interject their personal opinions -and I doubt they will have a Catholic teach the course).

Would it be impossible to talk about alcoholism without either promoting or condemning drinking?

If not, then explain how they could cover the tendancy to drink without saying that becoming drunk is bad (or good).

Is alcoholism nothing more than the act of getting drunk all the time?

NO! It is the tendancy to get drunk all the time. You don't have a class on alcoholism, and then simply discuss the tendancy. It are the acts that define the "cultrue" of alcoholism. If individuals throughout history were able to controle their alcoholic tendancies, then there would be nothing to discuss.

If homosexuals throughout history were able to control their tendancies, then there would be no "gay culture" to study.

[Jake Huether]

There are many other questions on AIDS academics can discuss and teach about: How did it affect the self identification of homosexual men? How did it affect their experiences with homophobia? How was the AIDS epidemic portrayed in gay literature or theatre? Did the movie 'Philadelphia', change perceptions of gay men by other people? How did public discussion of AIDS as a homosexual disease affect the coming out experiences of gay men? Their working lives? The experiences of their children?

Will they not discuss how AIDS became widespread? How homosexuals throughout recent history attempted to overcome this epademic? Etc.

Be honest with yourself please.

Yes, they might cover the material that you are presenting. But do you really and truly think that they won't at least touch on some of the more controvercial issues (like gay adoption, gay marriage, gay sex, etc.). C'mon... You're fooling yourself if you don't think so. It isn't anti-homosexual to say, yes. It's just logical.

[_bc]

How is a "homosexual" different from a heterosexual when they DO NOT act on their passions? There is no difference. The class is based on the ACTS, because it is the ACTS that define a homosexual "culture".

...

Homosexuality is nothing more than the tendancy to be attracted to someone of the same gender.  Blip that out, and they're the exact same as a heterosexual.  But you could cover that topic in less than a day.  A complete semester on "homosexuality" is sure to cover the ACT of sex between people of the same gender.

How is an Irish immigrant different from any other American?

There are many cultural issues that are related to each other. Homosexuality is not just sexuality, it's also a cultural phenomenon and as such is just as valid as a subject for serious study as any other cultural phenomenon. Just like you can study Irish immigrants beyond where their parents were born - say, how are they portrayed in literature, in comparison to Italian immigrants? I'm using this as an example, because if I remember correctly this course is a different section under the same course number in the U. of Michigan catalog.

Does this mean all Irish immigrants are the same, or they all behave the same ways? No. It just means that you can gain insights into society by examining issues that many of them have in common. Just like you can gain insights into society by examining how a gay subculture forms.

So how is a gay man different from anybody else while they are not having sex, you ask. For one thing, they are likely to have to deal with people like you, who would ban them as a topic for serious study. They have also been likely to get ostracised, beaten up and mentally tortured in school. More gay men seem to like Judy Garland, San Fransisco and the Eurovision Song Contest. (I wonder if these things are related?) Many have to fear losing their careers if anybody finds out who they love. Are you sure there is no difference?

I gave many examples of cultural phenomena and issues relating to homosexuals and AIDS, that were valid subjects for study. Probably enough for a whole course in just homosexuality and AIDS, if you probe the issues, and all this without even really knowing anything about homosexuals or AIDS. Imagine what a scholar with 25 years of teaching and research experience could come up with!

If homosexuals throughout history were able to control their tendancies, then there would be no "gay culture" to study.

Even if this was relevant, homosexuals still have free will, and not all of them want to 'control their tendencies', just like not everybody wants to refrain from sex before marriage. If Almighty God respects our free will, who are we to disrespect it?

All cultural studies of human sexuality are likely to touch on the possibility of sex before marriage. No meaningful history of gender equality can bypass the social effects of the pill. Do you want to ban these two subejcts as well? How about criminology? After all, if you study criminals, mightn't you become one yourself?

These subjects are all far more likely to discuss actual acts of sin than a course in gay subculture. If you don't want to ban any discussion of anything that might possibly be related to acts of sin - how is it not hypocrisy to want to ban studies of gay culture?

Edited August 14, 2003 by _bc

[FreeSoul]

When I was about 14 or 15, my mother and I were having dinner on Church street in Toronto, (the restaurants there are amazing by the way) just another way for mom and I to bond. While we were passing through she gave me a brief primer of what it was like in this community in the 1980's and what impact the AIDS crisis had on how people acted attitudes in the community, police raids, drug culture, family life, run aways etc.

It would be impossible for anyone to understand/minister to homosexuals without understanding the very relevant history of how the community/subculture came to be. Not to mention the fact that gay people are different from bisexual people are different from lesbians and are totally different from transgendered and intersexed individuals. Life in the gay community is NOT monocultural, and in fact the way that these different groups relate to each other is just like any other society, constantly in flux and changing.

Whether the course intends to promote gay rights or altogether reject the existance of variant sexual orientations it irrelevant. You can not censor a course which is political, when you are more than capable of writing a paper which counters their claim, that is academic freedom and that is free speech. (Although imo I don't see how THIS particular course sets any agenda aside, it looks to me like a history/anthropological course).

I think that if Catholics intend to to minister to homosexuals they need to know who they are dealing with and the fact is most Catholics do NOT understand the diversity and origins of modern gay culture, other than loosely applied stereotypes and will and grace.

[Jake Huether]

How is an Irish immigrant different from any other American?

There are many cultural issues that are related to each other. Homosexuality is not just sexuality, it's also a cultural phenomenon and as such is just as valid as a subject for serious study as any other cultural phenomenon. Just like you can study Irish immigrants beyond where their parents were born - say, how are they portrayed in literature, in comparison to Italian immigrants? I'm using this as an example, because if I remember correctly this course is a different section under the same course number in the U. of Michigan catalog.

Does this mean all Irish immigrants are the same, or they all behave the same ways? No. It just means that you can gain insights into society by examining issues that many of them have in common. Just like you can gain insights into society by examining how a gay subculture forms.

So how is a gay man different from anybody else while they are not having sex, you ask. For one thing, they are likely to have to deal with people like you, who would ban them as a topic for serious study. They have also been likely to get ostracised, beaten up and mentally tortured in school. More gay men seem to like Judy Garland, San Fransisco and the Eurovision Song Contest. (I wonder if these things are related?) Many have to fear losing their careers if anybody finds out who they love. Are you sure there is no difference?

I gave many examples of cultural phenomena and issues relating to homosexuals and AIDS, that were valid subjects for study. Probably enough for a whole course in just homosexuality and AIDS, if you probe the issues, and all this without even really knowing anything about homosexuals or AIDS. Imagine what a scholar with 25 years of teaching and research experience could come up with!

Even if this was relevant, homosexuals still have free will, and not all of them want to 'control their tendencies', just like not everybody wants to refrain from sex before marriage. If Almighty God respects our free will, who are we to disrespect it?

All cultural studies of human sexuality are likely to touch on the possibility of sex before marriage. No meaningful history of gender equality can bypass the social effects of the pill. Do you want to ban these two subejcts as well? How about criminology? After all, if you study criminals, mightn't you become one yourself?

These subjects are all far more likely to discuss actual acts of sin than a course in gay subculture. If you don't want to ban any discussion of anything that might possibly be related to acts of sin - how is it not hypocrisy to want to ban studies of gay culture?

How is an Irish immigrant different from any other American?

Dang, can't you get it? Sorry, it's just so frustrating. You can't even compare homosexuality and immigration. Yes there are cultrual differences between an Irish immigrant and a Mexican immigrant. But being Mexican and being Irish don't encompass any tendancy toward sin! Homosexuality does!

Homosexuality is not just sexuality, it's also a cultural phenomenon

That is the most contradictory statment I've ever read. Homosexuality is ALL about sexuality (otherwise it wouldn't be called homo - SEXUALITY). The reason it is a cultural phenom. is because of the ACTIONS surrounding homosexuality. You think it would be such a "phenom" if homosexuality was defined as the tendancy to be chaste and live as Christ? Homosexuality, at it's very base, is the tendancy to be attracted to the opposite sex.

Tell us about the gay culture, that doesn't have to do with sexuality? There cultural influance is based on sin.

Just like you can gain insights into society by examining how a gay subculture forms.

So, tell me, do you think they will pull this off in a factual light (neutral). Do you think they will show our cultrue now (accepting of gay lifestyles) as base and degraded. And how about the culture then (non-accepting, yet not necessarily homophobic)? Will they show how great an moral a culture it was? Or will they slam conservatives for thinking that sexual attraction to the same gender is a disorder? I tend to think that they will scoff at ANYONE who opposes their ACTS. They will raise issues such as the Popes recent encyclical, and call these things "close minded".

Gain insight into society? Maybe. An unbiased insight? Highly unlikely.

So how is a gay man different from anybody else while they are not having sex, you ask. For one thing, they are likely to have to deal with people like you, who would ban them as a topic for serious study.

That is a very a-hole thing to say. Deal with people like ME? People that care about their souls - and not their sexual liberation? Oh. Okay - your right then.

How is a gay man different while they are not having sex? If they weren't having sex, they wouldn't be any different! We all have struggles and tendencies toward sin! The reason they catch flack is because of the sin they partake in. The reason they are discriminated against (at it's base) is not because they are sensative, or because they are caring, or feminine. They catch flack because they are doing things with the SAME sex! NOWadays sensative, caring, feminine men are called "gay" ONLY because openly gay individuals have smeared the lines between these chaste and good characteristics and the counter natural characteristic of sexual and sensual pleasure with the same sex.

More gay men seem to like Judy Garland, San Fransisco and the Eurovision Song Contest. (I wonder if these things are related?) Many have to fear losing their careers if anybody finds out who they love. Are you sure there is no difference?

But you don't see. The reason they are "made fun of" if they like Judy Garland is because their activities have branded them as such. It isn't BECAUSE they like Judy Garland, San Fransisco and the Eurovision Song Contest. The root of their "torture" is the ACTS that they do (sinfull acts I might add) that have forever stained our society. A heterosexual can't even "like" Judy Garland without being made fun of. Not because he likes Judy Garland, but because of the stereotype. If homosexuals liked Judy Garland, but didn't act on their tendancies (I'm talking at the begining of the disorder - not now), then men liking Judy wouldn't be an issue.

I gave many examples of cultural phenomena and issues relating to homosexuals and AIDS, that were valid subjects for study. Probably enough for a whole course in just homosexuality and AIDS, if you probe the issues, and all this without even really knowing anything about homosexuals or AIDS. Imagine what a scholar with 25 years of teaching and research experience could come up with!

Sure, but you are looking at this through rose colored glasses. In reality this will end up a support group for homosexual's (and not to promote chastity and abstinance).

Even if this was relevant, homosexuals still have free will, and not all of them want to 'control their tendencies', just like not everybody wants to refrain from sex before marriage. If Almighty God respects our free will, who are we to disrespect it?

So why have laws banning murder, or rape. It's that persons free will, right? Oh, you say, but it hurts others. I can give you a tun of evidence on how homosexual ACTS hurt individuals AND society.

There should also be a class then for humans with a tendancy to like animals. Or dead people. Oh, but those are unnatural and gross. Yeah! You see, the class wouldn't PROMOTE these activities. But somehow men liking other men is natural.

All cultural studies of human sexuality are likely to touch on the possibility of sex before marriage. No meaningful history of gender equality can bypass the social effects of the pill. Do you want to ban these two subejcts as well? How about criminology? After all, if you study criminals, mightn't you become one yourself?

But for whatever reason our culture still thinks murder is bad (well, at least if you are a healthy human who is not in a womb or hospital), so murder will be taken for what it is; a sinful act. Homosexual acts are not taken for what they are, and they will surely be PROMOTED among homosexuals in a class atmosphere.

[hyperdulia again]

Homosexuality is a studyable thing Jake, because there is more to it than sexual preferences, it comes with a culture, a language, a history, churches, and a world-view. The gay community is torn at the moment like many other minority communities, between assimilation into the larger culture and not losing the defining things of the sub-culture--which are not, believe it or not, sexual acts. I think this course is intellectual wasteful though, because, gay culture as such (as opposed to small networks of friends), had not, until the 19th century revival (I cite, Wilde, Douglas, Whitman, Whistler, etc.), existed since the thirteenth century in France. The culture moved from being a nnineteenth century idea, "The Love that dared not speak its name," to a sub-culture that grew in size and influence throughout the twentieth century and developed its own theories on life, love, birth, dying, and relationships from the 1960's to the 1980's, and that was forced into maturity and responsibility to and for other members of the sub-culture by AIDS, you can't really study a thing that we have no historical or intellectual distance from, the lions who formulated modern Gay Culture are still alive or only recently dead, so their ideas aren't available yet for objective dissection.

This is very rambly, but I don't feel like going back and making it readable, suffice it to say I still don't think the class is a good idea, but not for the reasons given.

[hyperdulia again]

Canon Fodder

By Bruce Bawer

Originally appeared in The Advocate, May 16, 1995, and was reprinted in the collection Beyond qwerty: Challenging Gay Left Orthodoxy (Free Press, 1996).

There's one gay culture that would seem to belong peculiarly to gays, as is the case with the camp and diva worship often seen among gay men. There's also another gay culture: It constitutes much of the distinctive Western civilization that cultural conservatives would like to defend, and it belongs to everybody.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

GAY CULTURE. We hear — and use — the phrase all the time, but what does it mean? Well, if we're talking about gay men, it can mean camp. It can mean Streisand, "Dynasty," Madonna. Some months ago a guest Advocate columnist raised the issue of whether the shared interest of many gay men in such cultural phenomena is innate. A straight friend of his had claimed that the gay-icon status of a Judy Garland, say, was simply the consequences of gay men taking their cues from other gay men. The writer of the piece demurred, insisting that gay boys feel strongly drawn to certain things at a very young age.

I agree. To be sure, not all gay men respond powerfully to the same stuff. I never cared for "Dynasty," for example, nor am I a big opera fan. But I do find myself watching Mildred Pierce, Mommie Dearest, and Auntie Mame virtually every time they're on TV, and I enjoy them out of all proportion to their objective merits. The same goes for the British sitcom "Absolutely Fabulous"; not till weeks after I fell for it did I discover that it was a nationwide gay favorite.

Obviously these tastes have something to do with my being a gay man. But what, exactly? For every canonical gay taste I share, there are ten I don't. In any event, I don't think such tastes are a direct consequence of my homosexuality. Would Alexander the Great have loved Auntie Mame? Would Richard the Lion-Hearted have become addicted to "Ab Fab"? When a ten-year-old gay kid finds himself drawn to such phenomena, I suspect, it's not because of a genetic link between sexual orientation and cultural tastes, but because some complex conjunction between his as-yet-unarticulated awareness of his own differentness and society's signals to him about emotional orientation, sexual identity, and gender roles.

There's a distinction, of course, between "Ab Fab" and gay culture as it's understood by people who give prizes for "gay books" and such. But the dividing line isn't clear. Must a "gay movie" be written and directed by gays? Does a "lesbian novel" require a lesbian author, a lesbian protagonist? This question has plagued the Lambda Literary Awards — and to my mind has underscored the difficulty inherent in the whole notion of "gay culture" as something distinct from "straight culture."

On the one hand, I can understand the desire to honor art works that profitably ponder the meaning of gayness. On the other hand, I'm wary about the ghettoizing of gay culture. I'm also uncomfortable with the argument that gay people must "support gay culture." What can this mean? At best it's empty political rhetoric; at worst it's an insistence that we must embrace every novel, play, or movie produced by gay people whether or not we actually like it. This is totalitarianism, pure and simple.

It's also confining, for there's no part of the cultural landscape without a gay element. Even if gays constitute as much as fifteen percent of the population, the gay contribution to Western art, architecture, music, and literature far exceeds what it should be statistically. If you accept the right-wing claim that only one in a hundred people is gay, then the gay contribution is truly extraordinary. Think about it: A group comprising one percent of the population producing Erasmus, da Vinci, Michelangelo, Caravaggio, Marlowe, Bacon, Hölderlin, Hans Christian Andersen, Tchaikovsky, Proust ... the list goes on and on to include three of the four major nineteenth-century American novelists, one (perhaps both) of the two great nineteenth-century American poets, and two of the three most noted mid-twentieth-century American dramatists.

The immensity of the debt that Western civilization owes to gay and lesbian genius is pretty ironic, given that homosexuality is often described as a threat to Western civilization by those strangest of allies, the culturally philistine religious right and neo-conservative intellectuals. Especially ironic is the case of Allan Bloom the late author of The Closing of the American Mind. That 1987 best-seller, which defended the traditional literary canon against multiculturalism, became the neocon bible, a key text in the so-called culture wars. As those wars wore on the neocons began to mimic the rhetoric of the religious right, bizarrely linking the decline of American art, culture, and higher education to a deterioration of "family values," which in turn was blamed mostly on increasing acceptance of gays. Gays, then, were Western civilization's worst enemies — and Bloom its most ardent defender.

Yet what few readers knew was the Bloom (who died in 1992) was gay. His allies knew but that didn't keep them from bashing gays in print. Years ago, at a social occasion, a leading neocon was overheard saying to an associate, "Isn't it a shame about Allan Bloom?" He meant, of course, "Isn't it a shame that he's gay?" In fact the real shame was that neocons saw no moral difficulty in celebrating Bloom while vilifying gays generally — and that Bloom, for his part, never publicly confronted them with the fact that Western civilization, far from being threatened by homosexuality, is to a staggeringly disproportionate degree the creation of gay men and women.

"Do you want to protect your children from gay influence?" I imagine him writing. "Very well. Destroy the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, silence Messiah and Swan Lake, and burn Moby Johnsonville brat and The Portrait of a Lady. Gay culture is all around you — and it belongs to everybody."

[_bc]

Hyper,

I disagree with you on two points. First, I think contemporary society is no less worthwile as a subject for study than the past, and it has been studied in very fruitful ways even if nobody can be perfectly detached from it. The whole point of studying the past is to learn about the present, so I think it would be a mistake to exclude the recent past. I don't see that this topic is any different.

Second, I think the main issue is not whether the course should be taught or not. If people want to study these things, let them. As long as they meet the criteria applied to any other subject.

Jake,

I'm not ignoring your post, I'll reply to you later.

[mp15]

If people want to study these things, let them. As long as they meet the criteria applied to any other subject.

I have no problem with people wanting to take this coarse if they choose to either. But I do have a problem with using tax dollars from people that object to the coarse to pay for it. If someone wants to take this class then I say let them pay for it using 100% of there own money to do so. If they can't come up with the money then don't expect someone who objects to the class to pay their way.

[FreeSoul]

Sexuality is cultural. The study of sexuality makes for a deeper understanding of the person immersed in a particular culture.

So to study gay 'culture' or 'lifestyle' regardless of whether you feel that terminology to be appropriate or relevant is important to the ministry towards homosexuals.

You need to know who they are! and what they do!

How is that wrong or irrational? Even if it IS sin, ignorance towards how the sinful live is in fact unproductive!! You need to listen to sinners if you intend to help them...know how they live and what they do!

Otherwise you'll end up just like fundamentalist catholics in a helicopter dropping bibles on the first nations people of canada. And that's lame!

[cmotherofpirl]

I always figured they eat drink sleep like the rest of us....

[FreeSoul]

Of course they do!

After all that's all culture is. eating drinking and sleeping! :D