You know, in truth, Lori, I expect to be sharing this odd formulation of yours with people because it's one of those things that widens their eyes and shakes their heads in disbelief. I actually dropped the line on a friend of mine the other day while we were talking about her gay brother. It got me two things; a thin laugh and this look common in my social circles that says, "I don't really want to know where that comes from, do I?"
Perhaps next we should argue about what
is is. At the very least it would be less neurotic.
With his rude, persistent demand for the bodily origin of spiritual things, Freud starts not with love but with sexuality. But the man who discussed what he called the sexual life of children, and who insisted on the sexual character of thumb-sucking, must have had a special definition of sexuality. In fact, Freud's definition of the sexual instinct shows that he means something very general. It is the energy or desire with which the human being pursues pleasure, with the further specification that the pleasure sought is the pleasurable activity of an organ of the human body. He attributed the capacity of yielding such pleasure ... to all parts of the surface of the human body, and also to the internal organs. The organ in question may be the genital, or it may be the mouth, as in thumb-suckint, or it may be the eyes, as in the delight of seeing. If sex is so defined, there will surely be little disposition to deny that infants do have a sexual life, or even that sex in this sense is their chief aim. Infants are naturally absorbed in themselves and in their own bodies: they are in love with themselves; in Freudian terminology, their orientation is narcissistic. Infants are ignorant of the serious business of life (the reality-principle) and therefore know no guide except the pleasure-principle, making pleasurable activity of their own body their sole aim. And since childhood is a period of real immunity from the serious business of life, children are really in a position to obtain pleasure from the activity of their bodies to an extent which the adult is not. So Freud's definition of sexuality entails the proposition that infants have a richer sexual life than adults.
(Brown, 26)
In reducing the polymorphous to the singular and deliberately exclusive, you are only encouraging neurosis.
What's really curious about this, Lori, is that
you are the one who tied one's sexual appeal so tightly to their personal worth. That is, if one hasn't what it takes to get a person off, then that one is somehow worthless.
This strikes many as ironic. Even feminist sympathizers such as myself stop and scratch our heads at this: So, first we all spend years—in some cases
lifetimes—trying to explain that a woman's worth is not measured in her physical attributes or her ability to dole out adequate sexual pleasure on demand. But, along comes a gay man who isn't turned on by the thought of plowing a woman's furrow, and suddenly it's
genderist? Really, Lori? Is that
really where you want the discussion to go? Right back to measuring you—a woman—as a human being according to your ability to sexually satisfy men?
So let's make a short list here: people who think that "discussing" homosexuality is somehow verboten by Sciforums or other similar standards.
• People who compare consensual sex to raping animals.
• People who think a gay couple getting married somehow wrecks their own union.
• Biblically religious people who like to ignore Jesus.
• People who assert that those who want sexual satisfaction should have to submit themselves to being raped.
Do you notice a theme emerging? We can expand the list all you want, but the underlying theme will continue to be, "People who have a problem with homosexuals."
So let's stop and think about that for a moment. Not only have you stated that gay people should be raped if they want sexual satisfaction—and if you can't see the problem in that phrasing, I don't know what to tell you—but you've also repeatedly tried to dehumanize them by claiming they cannot have sex. Yet when questioned on the implications of this formulation, you dodged.
What are people supposed to think, m'lady? That is, when they see you dehumanizing a class of people, demanding that they be raped, and snarling at the idea that this sort of declaration is looked down upon—what the hell are people supposed to think?
____________________
Notes:
Brown, Norman O. Life Against Death . Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 1959.
