I Hate LGBT Culture

Have you looked at how the straight community is portrayed? sex sex sex. Hollyweird demands beauty, fashion demands beauty. Huge billboards with half naked men and women. Celebrities pulled apart in the tabloids because of their sex lives.
Everyone is over sexualised. Hell, ever seen a push up bikini top for a toddler? Or compared toddler girls shorts to the same size in toddler boys? Looked at the clothes in stores directed towards teenage girls?

It's not just the LGBT community...there is an obsession that beauty=sexy=money...

 

Read this, this is why suicide and substance abuse is so high.....it's some of the newer studies. I found it really interesting.

https://cdn.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/issues/2012/03/pdf/lgbt_substance_abuse.pdf

 

Let me just remind you that if you are queer, then *you* are queer culture.

 

I think the problem lies with you and your self-proclaimed 'conservative upbringing', not 'LGBT culture' - whatever the hell that is. The conservative outlook on life is almost always wrong, so try working on that.

 

I have to agree with you on this, pride parades are over the top and seem to be mostly consisting of scantily dressed people throwing out condoms and rainbow lolly willys. It often seems to be portrayed as being a crazy, boisterous hive of sex and unstable emotions. It bothers me how a lot of people seem to join in with it and assume that this is what the lgbt community is...when really it isn't. The average majority are no different from anyone else, and it's not fair that media (and so on) try to bunch everyone into one stereotype.

 

I have changed a lot recently... my values have shifted quite a bit towards the "liberal" end of the spectrum, especially regarding relationships, but still... I have to agree with you completely. No matter how different I may be from how I used to be, I still can't see the appeal in any of this. I don't think this is a battle I have to fight. People are too busy to really get upset about you liking the same sex, that is if they know at all which they won't if I can help it. It's completely irrelevant data for anyone I do not consider to be a close friend, and even then I have only ever told one guy who isn't LGBT himself.

I'm just as bewildered by why some of you think we hate ourselves if we wish to be more reserved and prefer to like dick our own quiet and peaceful ways. Moreover, I hate the oversexualized straight "culture" just as much. When a company slaps a couple boobies on an ad to try to sell it more I instantly go to another product because even if I was straight, they're still trying to appeal to my animalistic side (which does exist and I do not wish to suppress it anymore), but that's not what makes my decisions.

 

Thank you for the link. I think it is an excellent and objective overview of the causes leading to these two problems, suicide and substance abuse. I certainly experienced several of these problems myself, including alcohol abuse and enduring bullying in the public schools. More generally, many of the other factors discussed affect us all.

An understanding of these factors ought to cause us to become more caring toward each other, rather than tending to popularize more impersonal and casual methods of socialization.

 

No, I possess an ability to read between the lines. Which evidently you don't.

What you see =/= culture. They are not one and the same. If that were true, then I could say that gangbangers = Hispanic culture, but obviously I know that isn't true. My point is there is a lot below the surface and one shouldn't be so quick to write off a "culture" (term used loosely here) based on what one sees in the media.

Well the issue is applying different standards to different genders of relationships. If you're not doing that, then there's no issue. But people have a tendency to be blind to PDAs of straight people because it's so ingrained in society.

Frivolous lawsuits are an epidemic in general--I would like to see less "damages" and more attention being brought to "homophobic" bakeries. At least in this case LGBT couples could know which establishments to avoid.

The issue is relevant because if you're going to argue about who's cherry-picking, then all parties who are prone to it need to be focused on. It isn't as simple as telling gay people they're ignoring the "clear cut" anti-gay lines in a holy text.

 

You brought up a huge swath of issues in your original post; you can't now condemn people who are responding to all of them. If you bring up the issue of gay PDA it's necessary to compare them to straight PDA to make sure that the issue here isn't different standards. If it's not, then there's no issue, as I said before. And you brought up religion in the last part of your post so I am just addressing it. Religion is a very relevant LGBT issue and many LGBT people are religious. So the two are not mutually exclusive.

 

Say what you want about the title of this thread being provocative, it grabbed my attention! :lol:

I agree that it's overly sexualized but I don't agree that it's not a big deal in regards to legality. As others said before, the discrimination of refusing to provide your services purely on the basis on one's sexuality is ridiculous and it mirrors how businesses used to deny their services on the basis of skin color or interracial marriage or interracial background.

As for religion, the only Christians who are really against same sex marriage are the ones raised as conservative Christians in the notion that it is wrong in all cases.

Many who were raised to that type of thinking don't realize that much of the Bible was written according to the culture of the time. It also says nothing about relationships so that's another mile from an inch that is used. Christians who actually believe in the love of God in all cases know that He would accept people of the LGBT community and will not discriminate against such.

 

What are your experiences of 'gay culture'? Is it just the gay scene, or have you joined any gay groups/ social events? Do you have gay friends? Have you been involved in any politically orientated LGBT groups?

I agree that the gay scene and culture is heavily dominated by white people but I don't believe it to be an issue of exclusivity. For those of other ethnicities there is more chance of cultural pressures that prevent them from coming out and engaging in the gay community. Of course for some there is the issue of discrimination within gay society based on race but I have not witnessed it myself here in the UK and I worked in a bar on the gay scene for a few years, so saw a wide range of people.

 

I have to say that I have been a part of gay culture, even the way it is defined by you for over twenty years and from where I sit it's been wonderful. I've met a lot of great people and made a lot of wonderful friends. I've belonged to a ton of gay groups hardly any of which had anything to do with sex, I've been to at least one pride parade every year for at least twenty years and to be honest I wish they were a little MORE over the top--three hours is a long time--and I met my husband of eighteen years in a gay bar. I can understand that my life may not be your cup of tea but I really don't understand why you would feel the need to HATE it. My guess from your posting is that your life would probably not really be my cup of tea either, but unlike you I really do hope that whatever you are doing works out for you.

 

Oh I love pride parades, all the sexiness <3

 

You bring up quite a few different points with varying levels of validity and I'm going to attempt to address as many as possible.

You admit here that the way LGBTQ culture is portrayed in media may not actually represent the vast majority of LGBTQ people. This is definitely an accurate assumption to make, and I think that instead of criticising the culture you see portrayed by media, you should find the parts of the culture you feel you belong in and then attempt to change the media to paint a broader narrative.

As someone who is also gay-ace, I understand your concerns about the oversexualisation of the community by straight media, and that is a legitimate concern. However, it needs to also be recognised that our community does have sex, and those who do wish to have it should not be shamed for doing so. Additionally, it is again where I would suggest finding queer media that you like that does not sexualise queer bodies for straight consumption. The Fosters and Modern Family are both pretty good examples of shows that do not sexualise, and I would also suggest Steven Universe as well.

When it comes to Pride, the modern queer liberation movements of the 1970's-current day have strayed away from the idea of "respectability politics" where for you to be given the rights you deserve as a human being, you have to act, talk, etc. a certain way. This is shown in Pride and other movements that accept queer people who fulfill stereotypes as well as those who don't. It's okay to fulfill stereotypes and it's also okay to break them. Again, just don't shame people for doing either. I would maybe guess that your negative reactions to Pride may be because of respectability politics.

You admit your own biases here, and that's good. Now I would suggest going more in-depth to see why it is you really feel this way. If you are a sex-repulsed asexual, that's fine, and I completely understand why some people may not like PDA. However, for those who are pro-PDA (including my partner and I) we believe it is revolutionary to be able to show our love for each other in public, both as a queer couple and a multiracial couple. Some people are pro-PDA for a multitude of reasons other than making sex a significant element of their identities.

This is a very good point, and I commend you for making it, especially on a site where some members seem to take more of a "Colorblind" mentality to racial topics. The community is overwhelmingly portrayed as white, and I've been told by my partner many times that he has had to "choose" between his queer and of color identities at times, and that is definitely wrong. The "masc 4 masc, no fats, no fems, no blacks, etc." of queer dating sites is also very racist and exclusive, and I think that it needs to be addressed much more within the community as a problem. We as a community need to make the community as inclusive to all people and all voices as possible, or else we run the risk of marginalising people within our own identities.

I wrote my Queer Theory term paper about this very issue of LGBTQ Nondiscrimination laws, and this issue goes so much farther than just a cake or a church service as you attempt to make it seem. It is not petty of them to issue litigations on a ethical level, because they damn well should fight for their right to be served and their right to be treated as a decent human being, and whenever any business that serves the public denies them the same treatment, that is discrimination and it should be settled, either by law or by court decision. It is not petty to fight for your rights, and I highly doubt that we would call the Brown family of Topeka, Kansas petty for trying to send their daughters to an all-white school right across the street from them instead of having them go to school 45 minutes away.

 

On the surface it may appear sexual but then I suppose the thing that unites a large portion of LGBT community is sexuality and nothing else. However, when you say on the surface, do you mean that you don't believe it to be an accurate image of the culture? So it is the image of LGBT culture you dislike, not the actual true nature of it?

Well racism is a thing that happens in all walks of life, just the same as homophobia. That doesn't mean that racism is an integral part of gay culture. Again, if your ethnic culture is different from most others in your gay community, then it furthers the point that maybe all you will have in common is sexuality, which gets us back to the sexualisation.

I'm not being difficult but besides the external (and/or 3rd party) sexualised image, I'm still not sure what you dislike about LGBT culture.

On a slightly more positive note, is there anything you do like about it?