2 Dapper Straight Guys Wanted To Feel What It Was Like To Be Gay. The Community Responded. What do you guys think?
Can't they have just listened to actual queer people when we say we're threatened? They can happily go home to their heterosexual lives and be done with it. Queer people don't get that luxury, and we also get the insult of silly experiments like this drowning out our own voices when we talk about our issues. It's like when non-Muslim women wear a niqab to go shopping and talk about how much it's changed their lives instead of just asking a woman who wears it regularly. I get that it's not malicious. But I refuse to ignore that it's harmful and moderately patronising.
Here's my response to people who say "It's okay to be gay, BUT don't hold hands, talk about your partner, etc etc"
I am probably nit picking but for me "I am not narrow-minded" explains the thing... Some people can't accept us as we are, they just pretend that they can as they don't want to be viewed as un-cool people. While counting our blessings is a good thing, I find that behaviour somehow disturbing. I am not even walking into fake understanding the Muslim women thing. Maybe I should wear a cross one day and feel how it is to be like a Christian man?
I definitely also felt that it was a bit like "okay so gay people say it's bad, but they're all just drama queens, let's prove this with rational straight men!" I mean...thanks for supporting LGBT+ and helping with awareness, and trying. A+ for effort, please don't stop trying. At the same time, if we're honest about Western society, straight, white men have the most power and the loudest voices. So as (I don't have a word in English for this) kimoui* as this feels, it's still frustratingly necessary I think. :/ (*kimoui - used to express a bad feeling without something necessarily being bad)
Learning by example is not just a good tool for learning new information, but reinforcing and empathizing as well. I honestly think a majority here are being quick to judge them for being patronizing, when what they're doing is putting themselves in our shoes. I read this article elsewhere, and it points out (more explicitly anyways) that these two were mostly/only holding hands. It says a lot when two men can't hold hands without society jumping to conclusions, and even worse: mocking them for that.
My mom is one who says that gays should stay in the closet. Idk what she really means, because she's actually very accepting if my gf's, treats them as part of the family, she was on a softball team that was mostly lesbian and was fine with it, and when we were at an airport bar and started talking to a pair of gay men, she said she thought they were a cute couple. Maybe it just means don't talk about it, or maybe she doesn't want to see kissing....I don't really know.
Me too, I'm quite astounded that people could draw something negative from this. A well known straight male British comedian raising awareness of inequality and gaining half a million views online in the process. Thats only a good thing. Plus any civil rights movement is reliant heavily on allies in the "opposing camp" to influence, educate and use their power for good. We can't do this alone. Was he being patronising? Of course not. He openly states at the start of the video that he was unaware of how big an issue this was and so it shocked him to hear, he then puts himself in a gay person's shoes and experiences this first-hand and summarises with a changed viewpoint. Now I would be interested to see where he goes from here, but still, the video itself is fine. +1 for that. But yes, it is infuriating. And there's the saying "people in glass houses should not throw stones". Well "people fondling their genitalia in public should not label others disgusting".
So, they are acting...so what. I liked it, was cute. More people should be doing that and not complain and act like bored straight people do. More men walking down the streets holding hands....more more....
Sometimes in order to understand something, you have to experience a taste of it yourself. And for these two people to decide to do that, I find commendable. I don't see how anyone can see this as a bad thing. It helps spread awareness of the problems that gay people go through. Isn't that exactly what we want?
Exactly, its countering the "homophobia doesn't exist" and "its not so bad" mindsets that many non-gay people fall into be it through innocent naivety (as the presenters honestly admitted to at the start) or through willful ignorance. Now of course you can have the same experiment with gay couples (which has been done before to good effect), see here which is worthwhile however I think straight people chipping in (particularly celebrities) can be positive in another way. Being well known they are going to be getting a lot of views quickly*, and they are going to have the audience on their side from the get-go and probably have greater influence over those with "counter" beliefs, which unfortunately may not be the case with gay couples. Plus there is the novelty factor of people trying something different for them which will also help this go viral (a video "two gay men hold hands in public" just isn't going to attract the same viral attention). Plus whats really nice about the video is the pair have no qualms with holding hands (or are at least grown up enough to get on with it for the experiment without fuss). Good on them. They've put themselves in potential harm's way doing this (as I'm sure we can all agree on) so fair play to them. :eusa_clap *Notice the viewcount of the 20/20 video (200,000 in 7 years online) vs this video (half a million in 6 days). Its about exposure at the end of the day.
I think ppl are being too critical of them. They can't become gay to know what we feel like - this is the best they can do.
I agree with all those who called this a positive thing. This video will be far more watched than it would if it was two gay men talking about their everyday plight. It ties in quite closely to a video I posted in another thread: [YOUTUBE]hIhsv18lrqY[/YOUTUBE]
yes, people that are white, male, cis, straight have an easier time being heared.. hopefully this will change one day... but in the mean time why not using that advantage for a good cause... i mean a WMCS person cannot give his power to someone of a minority, as its not something you have, but something that society lends you... its bad that some people have an advantage, but using that advantage for supporting those who doesnt have the advantage, is good... lets give an example: lets change 'WMCS advantage of being heared' for, 'WMCS are given superpowers by the goverment since the day they are born'... its unfair that a WMCS can jump 10 meters and carry a truck singlehandly... but should we not use that power because its unfair? or should we use that power to take over the goverment and give superpowers to those who dont have them? you use your advantages to make sure that this advantage becomes something everybody have. this is a first step, and no its not harmful, first they pay attention to the straight guys holding hands, and with this its easier for them to gain conscience on a problem that gay guy have to live with. As a latin from the third world, i wouldnt get mad if a white person at the first world did something equivalent for us.
"Walk Two Moons". Putting yourself in another's shoes is a powerful thing. I think it's really cool that they did this, not just for the media attention and publicity, but for their own personal growth.
Well, it's pretty immediately obvious how this is not the most positive thing in the world. Let's suppose you were white and turned yourself black. And then let's suppose, just hypothetically speaking, that you went around and learned what it was like to be black (because people thought you actually were) and you didn't have a good experience. Then let's suppose, again just hypothetically, that you wrote a book called Black Like Me, explaining racism to white America through your own experience. What's the problem here? Well, the problem is pretty simple: the only time it's possible to communicate about racial oppression and be believed/have your material be commercially popular/whatever is when the communicator is white. The problem more generally is, who do we listen to on issues of oppression? When it comes to sexism, we listen to men. When it comes to racism, we listen to whites. When it comes to homophobia, we listen to straights. When it comes to transphobia, we listen to cisgender people. We couldn't listen to a woman, a person of color, a lesbian, or a gay or bisexual male, and we certainly couldn't listen to anyone trans or genderqueer. Because they are "biased" about the issues, whereas the people "removed" from the "specially interest" in their "own cause" are in fact the people in the dominant group. Or so goes the spectacular stupidity of Western liberal epistemology of objectivity.