Why do I need to worry about who you are sleeping with?

That is a fantastic question, and one to which I have absolutely no response.

I couldn’t care less who sleeps with whom, who’s in love with whom or what anyone else does in their own home so long as it’s consensual.

Well, I’ll tell you one reason why it may be important. Finding a partner. There aren’t very many gay people out there. Finding a partner can be difficult. If you have a general knowledge of some people who are gay, it can make such a thing easier. If I had known my boyfriend was gay years ago, we could’ve been in a relationship for years, who knows. But since I didn’t know, it took until right before college for that relationship to begin, despite the fact that I had liked him for a while, but assuming he was straight, it seemed out of the question. So that’s one reason why I might share that I am gay.

Another reason is that I like to talk about homosexual issues, including gay marriage, discrimination, etc. Personal experience is important in this regard. People are going to find out that I am gay if I share personal experiences with it. Same goes for questions about the origin of homosexuality. If I can help clear up the myth that it’s a “choice”, then I’m probably going to have to share my orientation.

The fact is, other people do give a damn. You might not, but there are people out there who want people dead for being homosexual. There are people out there who discriminate against them and don’t allow them to marry. We like to think we can ignore a person’s sexuality, but it’s a two-way street. The issues need to be solved before we can act like sexual orientation means nothing.

I’m in that minority as well. So much so, that I’ve never thought of why I should give a damn to begin with.

I guess I’m not in that minority. It’s not about who’s fucking who- if you care about someone, like a friend or a relative, then part of caring about them is caring about their personal life. I like that my friends and I can cry on each other’s shoulders over relationship problems, or celebrate each other’s milestones like marriage or children. (I’m 22, so the marriage and children part is just beginning in my social group… it’s crazy to think about people growing up like this.) All of this definitely includes people I care about who are in same-sex relationships. My best friend is gay, and while she’s single now, I’d never not care if she found someone to share her life with.

You don’t. But since you so correctly point out that there are people that flip a crap about queer people or simply find it necessary to discriminate, it becomes my business and my business becomes theirs – the ‘personal is political’ trope is very relevant to this issue. Also, because sex and food always elicit responses – they connect us to other animals and we ritualize them in order to disconnect ourselves from those same animals.

I don’t need to know who you slept with – until I’m sleeping with you myself, and then it’s more about STD’s and safety than anything else. I’d rather just see that lab test result saying you’re clean, though.

I’d like to find out who the hell I’m sleeping with now and then.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir . . . But, you see, I do. Whether it is one side screaming, “We’re Here! We’re Queer! Get used to it!” or the other side screaming, “God Hates Fags!”, I have to hear all about it.

The question I’m asking is why is it such a huge deal. Why is the anti side so hung up with it and why is the pro side so intent on making it so over the top when they present their case?

@Blondesjon So are you offended by the fact that the debate over gay rights is so visible? By asking this question, you’re encouraging more debate.

To my mind, the gay side has been gained ground by being positive and gaining public support, like when the first same-sex couple married in DC cried at their wedding. What a sweet and awesome moment. Not everyone likes pride parades, but they’re welcoming, fun, and irreverent. On the other hand, you have jerks like the Westboro Baptists with their God hates fags message… I agree that nobody wants to hear negative crap like that.

@Haleth . . . No. I’m offended by the fact that there even is a debate. By asking this question I’m hoping to point out the ridiculousness of even caring about who someo . . . hey wait a minute, didn’t I already explain this?

@Blondesjon It is ridiculous that the debate has to happen in the first place. We shouldn’t have to argue over whether to extend basic rights to people or whether it’s acceptable for them to be together. So in a way, you have a point.

@Haleth it is not ridiculous that a debate has to happen at all. It is the minority making a sound to be heard and respected just like the majority.
The majority hates to think of gay people having sex together or even kissing or holding hands together for a number of reasons. Just to list a few: The Bible tells them it is wrong. Their father who heard it from his father who heard it from his fathers said it was wrong. Some people are just flat out born with real homophobia. The government has laws against it (Holy shit it must be bad!). Rock Hudson had Aids, all gay people must have Aids and I ain’t catchin no Aids from a toilet seat that them faggot’s sit on! Hospitals have laws about visiting your lover after hours, shit, it must be wrong to be gay, doctor said it was. The Army can’t have a straight man and a gay man in a foxhole together, they might make gaybies together or something!! This list goes on and on. They line the streets in middle America like ants with signs and messages from police, city workers and the blue and white collar offices and buildings and factory yards. Nothing brings large groups of stupid people together like hate.
On the other hand:
Gay folks in the minority have to make their voices heard. Think of Martin Luther King. Someone has to speak the fuck up and make noise and make a scene to be seen. After all, the more something is seen the more natural it is, especially to Americans. Bring on the signs and the tights and public display’s of affection! Sure it is over the top but who is going to listen if it is not? Whats the first reaction on a days when you find out that Joe from the office is gay? Wow, shit Chuck, he’s gay? He does not act gay or even look gay, hmmm WTF? Once people can move over that tiny little hump we might be able to move forward a little faster. Nothing is going to bring gay people—and some straight people—together faster than a good old uprising that gains speed on a daily basis but is still far from even being close to the majority.
I actually heard someone was upset that gays might be able to marry one another, not because he really cared but because it might raise the cost of his insurance at his work. WTF people? Love one another already and get the hell over it.
This message brought to you by a straight, white man born in middle America who once tried touching another penis in a bedroom, shhhhhhhhh.

When it comes to people other than my husband and me, then i don’t care.

Because silence = death.

Who gives a fuck…....precisely.

I don’t care who is fucking who unless one of those people is my husband! Other than that, it’s none of my business.

@Blondesjon To be honest, I really don’t think it’s as simple as having the anti or the pro side – there are factions within the queer community (supportive of homonormativity) that I do not align myself with and there are many people who misunderstand…I don’t always speak for any one group unless I’m talking about very specific small groups that I’m a part of..and I’m not sure what you mean by ‘over the top’ in terms of discussion but I don’t think that’s what we do – generally, a topic comes up (like on fluther) and if I feel that it’s necessary to say something, I say it..just like with any other topic..

I don’t care either.

@lucillelucillelucille I really think more people not care than care – but politics around sexuality aren’t completely about caring or about sex – they’re about how society shapes life for people – heteronormativity and marriage are institutions that extend beyond the bedroom and are a form of control that, ironically, has each person thinking it’s about personal things.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir . . . I think that it is silly to feel that you are defined by your sexuality. I have seen you, and many others on either side of the debate, go out of their way to explain what they do with their genitalia and how that makes them special and “who they are.” This is what I mean by over the top. It’s unnecessary and a bit juvenile.

We should all be defined by what we contribute to society as a whole, not what we do with our pee-pees. Remember, much of the animal kingdom has the same basic reproductive set up that we do. We’re not special, and perhaps we need to get over that on both sides.

If you want to get rid of discrimination against non-heterosexuals you really do need to quit wearing your sexuality on your sleeve like it’s some kind of badge. In the beginning it was necessary to bring to light that there are individuals who enjoy an alternate lifestyle. It was necessary to be flamboyant, loud, and “in your face” with it. Most of modern society is now aware that there are indeed queer folk among us and that it is not an anomaly, it is simply a fact of life. It time now for the non-heterosexual movement to put on their Brooks Brothers suits and their Sunday dresses and start toning it down a little. This is, of course, if you want to be taken seriously now, in the 21st century.

I’m not saying you can’t be yourself in your day to day life, but when you are presenting your case for your cause you need to pander a bit to the “man”. You will be taken much more seriously if you aren’t protesting in a gold lame thong or other attire that scares the “straights”. Isn’t taking it down a notch and playing the game for just a little bit worth getting legal rights that should be yours to begin with? Sure, it’s a shitty, cynical way to go about it but, then again, it’s a shitty, cynical world.

Now, for anyone who does discriminate against non-heterosexuals I have a much more succinct message. Grow the fuck up and let it go. You’re not going to change it and it really isn’t any of your fucking business to begin with. Concentrate on your own lives and let other adults make their own adult decisions. This may be very hard for you to do at first but I guarantee that in the long run it will make you a much happier person.

@Blondesjon I am not at all defined by my sexuality – I think I’m much more defined by my activism and motherhood. I think that just because I talk a lot about gender and sexuality on Fluther and they’re topics I’m interested in pursing a PhD in, there is no need to think that’s all I live and breathe because my life is much more well-rounded than that and the same can be said of other people, I think. Perhaps when I was figuring my sexuality out when I was around 12 or later on, for a month, in college when changing my ‘label’ from bisexual to queer, did any of this really define me but no longer. I completely agree with your take on how we should all be defined and would gladly forget about what we do in our bedrooms. However, just like with sexism, we are thrust into discrimination by others and their remarks. Because I care about people and their experiences, I can not be silent in the face of something I feel is wrong – that’s how I’ve always been. I’ve never thought my sexuality was a badge..I’ve always thought my sexuality is just like everyone else’s until people taught me differently through insults. I never joined GSA in high school or the LGBT office at NYU for my sake because I always believed there was nothing wrong with me and that my sexuality was not and should not be a focus of anyone’s.

Furthermore, I don’t think sexuality or queer sexuality is something about ‘enjoying an alternate lifestyle’ because that discredits what harm discrimination brings and that our sexualities are more complicated than a ‘lifestyle’ – there was no ‘in the beginning’, imo..there are queer trans youth of color these days in NYC that do not reap the rewards of the ‘gay fight of the privileged white male’ whatsoever and could care less that the HRC or the taskforce are trying to push for gay marriage because they don’t even have a place to live. I am with these people, this is my community – I do not join them because they validate my sexuality or gender identity, I join them just like I join the civil rights movement, just like I join the environmentalist movement, just like I join the immigrant movement – I join because injustice exists.

I also want to address what you say is ‘being taken seriously’ – what do you mean by that? Who do you think I, as a queer person and an activist, want to be taken seriously by? I have never protested in a gold lame thong (or any attire to ‘scare the straights’ – besides that’s not why people wear whatever you find as ‘flamboyant’ – our lives are not about straight people) and there is nothing I need to ‘take a notch down’ about because I know it’s a shitty, cynical world and I will make it a world better for my children to live in. Thank you, as always, for a conversation.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir . . . “Enjoying an alternate lifestyle” is just another way of referring to homsexuality. Most people realize what that means without all of the bullshit subtext. If I wrote my response by simply saying, “gay gay gay gay” it would have become a bit redundant and boring. I think I got my point across quite well.

For the record, only my first paragraph was directed at you. The rest is simply the way I feel about the subject. I think it is a much more pragmatic and less self-centered way to deal with a problem that really shouldn’t be a problem at all. Jump through the hoops that it takes to get legal rights that should already be yours and then you can sit around and have the coffee house debate about it.

@Blondesjon The reason why I’m sensitive about calling it a lifestyle is because homophobic people use this as one of their ‘reasons’ as to why people can simply stop being queer and so I stray away from the phrase. And, again, of course none of this should be a problem at all but, a century ago, you saying that would have been completely unacceptable and discredited. People have changed their way of thinking, this is good. Finally, both jumping through hoops legally and having debates – well, it’s all part of it. We protest, we go to marches, to pride parades, we work with the center, we go to workgroups, we go to the piers to find the homeless, we donate money, we go to D.C. – that’s not just ‘Alex and me’ we, that’s all of my friends – the ‘enemy’ has many tentacles and we can attack the problem at multiple ends – to think otherwise is foolish and superficial.

The very best thing to happen for gay rights was coming out of the closet. If we all just shut-up about it being gay would still be a crime. It’s visibility that humanizes the gay community. It’s how we have gained and will continue to gain rights.

And it’s oh so easy when you’re part of the sexual majority to say, hey, it doesn’t matter. Just like it’s easy for white people to say race doesn’t matter. The assumption of the public is that everyone is straight. When people see your wedding ring they don’t assume your gay. When they see mine they assume I’m straight.

Invisibility = nonexistent. And I do exist. And I’ll shove it in your face if you assume otherwise.

@tinyfaery . . . Nobody said to shut up about it. I just said that there are better ways to further your cause in the 21st century than by shoving who you fuck in everyone’s faces. The majority of folks really don’t care. They just get turned off by the angry, screaming hysteria on both sides of the issue. Like you stated above, you feel like you are nonexistent if you aren’t viewed as gay. Again we’re back to defining yourself based on what you do with your genitalia. Why not present what else, besides sex, makes you a productive and viable human being.

State by state the laws against gay marriage are crumbling. Within the next ten years homosexuality will have become a non-issue, at least in the legal sense (marriage, adoption, spousal rights, etc). I think the whole movement could hurry that along by adjusting their tone to a civil level and working a system that, good or bad, is all we have for the moment.

Why are you so offended to be mistaken for straight? Isn’t that just as shitty as a straight person who freaks out if you think they are gay? Why does it have to be a “gay” community or a “straight” community? Why can’t it just be a Community? Extremism on both sides is what is holding up the whole process.

@Blondesjon I think there are plenty of gay activists kissing ass – enough of that, I say. The queer movement, like any movement, is getting co-opted by consumerism and classism. To be moderate, to be invisible – a lot of people in the LGBT community do strive for that but I don’t think they realize what they’re striving to be a part of. And I know you asked @tinyfaery this but since I agree with her, I’ll say this: it’s not about being offended, it’s about correcting assumptions.

Because I’m not straight. And there is no better way to gain rights. Stonewall was in 1969 and most states still have no protection for gays. When I have all the same rights straight people do then maybe your strategy will become effective. Until then, every gay person needs to let everyone they know they are gay, without shame and without apology. There will be no change otherwise.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir . . . My question is why does it need to be corrected? If someone is racist or homophobic no amount of persuasive argument in the world will change that person’s mind. It’s like trying convert an atheist or anti-abortionist. Why should a person even care how they are perceived?

Like I said, within a few years it will all be a moot point legally. You will still have assholes who hate you based on what you are. Do you spend your whole life trying to change minds that are just as unchangeable as your own?

I have no need to change anyone’s thinking, but I will not live my life trying to make others comfortable. I think you would understand that.

When and/if equal rights are obtained we’ll talk about this again.

@knitfroggy Nice. :)

Thank youuu for this post. Who really cares? Why does it matter so much?

Careful, some of you; your privilege is showing.

@Blondesjon It needs to be corrected because it’s not true – if someone called you a bachelor, you’d say ‘no, I’m married’ – if someone called you a KKK member, you’d say ‘no, I’m not’, right? It’s the same way – this is not a big deal and that’s why it shouldn’t be big deal for us to simply correct people….because not all of the people we deal with are homophobic..they are co-workers, new friends, etc. and you want them to know you so when they say ‘oh why do you support the lgbt community so much?’, you don’t say ‘oh I support gay rights’ in my case..you say ‘because I am part of it’..and then the questions start..well ‘why are you married to a man then?’ and ‘but you have kids!’ and so forth. To not address these in conversation makes no sense.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir . . . That is a bit out of context as to what I was driving at. I was talking about the irrational, militant anger that is often displayed when such a misunderstanding occurs. I was pointing out that a non-heterosexual freaking out because they have been mistaken for straight is no different than a heterosexual (usually male) freaking out because they have been mistaken for gay. It is two supposedly different people displaying exactly the exact same lack of intelligence.

Your point is well taken and well put, but within the context of your post I would have to say that if someone called me gay, straight, or any other name that directly dealt with what I do in the bedroom, I would not feel compelled to correct them. I would tell them that it is none of their fucking business.

Not only do I seriously not care about anyone elses’ sex life, I seriously have no desire to talk about mine with anyone, especially not a thousand people I don’t really know on the internet.
Huh. I guess I never thought about it but SOME gay people do tend to announce that they are gay(which is all about sex,) and identify with that fact more than straight people seem to. Their sexual preference seems to be at the forefront of their lives, it defines who they are. I don’t think I’ve heard someone announce, “Hi. I’m Herman and I’m straight.” Please note I said SOME. Some don’t. Like TinyFairy. She talks about her wife just as naturally as I would talk about my husband, and their same gender relationship is almost never brought up.

@Blondesjon To many people, sexuality isn’t only about what goes on in the bedroom and I think that’s what we keep circling around – whether or not all which goes with sex should also be private – because heteronormativity isn’t just about hetero sex – it’s about heterosexuals being able to hold hands together, about benefits, about assumptions of marriage and children. Only when it comes to queer sexualities, people start talking about how it’s supposed to be private and is only about what goes on in the bedroom – when, in reality, that’s not what it is about. @Dutchess_III The reason is because their sexuality was made a problem by others first and then, to deal with those experiences, many people can’t escape putting it to the forefront. You have to understand that, just like with race, each sexuality (especially ones not given privileges) is experienced differently and that is why a queer person may view a lot of their life through the sexuality lens whereas you, a straight person, will use some other lens because you weren’t ever told you’re abnormal (for your sexuality).

@Simone_De_Beauvoir . . . I’ve been quite abnormal all of my life, thank you very much. It doesn’t change the fact that I don’t believe a person needs to define themselves by an act that nearly every living creature on the planet participates in.

Holding hands is a far cry from fuckin’ (note the alliteration), at least where I come from.

@Blondesjon – You have been abnormal by your own choosing and even if not, your abnormality (if you’d like to give more details, I’ll see it it’s analogous) wasn’t attached to politics and ways of living. The person doesn’t need to define themselves by sex, that’s not what happens when someone discloses their sexuality. And of course holding hands isn’t sex but you should see people’s reactions to two men holding hands or being affectionate with one another.

I think you must be the only who who cares what others are doing, and with whom.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir . . . lol. I see that now this has become about you being a measuring stick for what is and isn’t fashionably queer.

The average Joe’s reaction to two men holding hands or making out is much more about the rampant sexism in America than it is about homophobia.

@Blondesjon To your first point, not at all. To your second, it is about both.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir That makes sense, actually. For example, black people tend to put their color in the forefront, because of all they’ve gone through here in the US.

@Dutchess_III Right.