Encouraging pathological sexuality among men, the encouragement of pathological narcissism, selfishness, egomania as sexual dominance is behind every rape, every act of using sex to harm someone else, every sexual murder, the rape of children, etc. That's as true when the man so encouraged is gay as when he is straight and might focus his domineering hatred on women or LGBT people. The added feature of internalized hatred when it is encouraged in gay men, through pornography, only adds to the pathological nature of it. The lives of gay men aren't there for the entertainment of would-be sophisticated straight people who like to impress each other with their not being shocked at things they hope will be found generally shocking. The lives of gay men aren't there for the free speech, free press industry to use to enable their rich backers to get to peddle ever more pathological encouragement to act in those ways.
When the old, white, straight theologian Walter Brueggemann was asked about the morality of gay sex, he, very impressively and very tellingly answered in terms of the generalized use of sex as an occasion to sin among straight as well as LGBT people. I thought it was the most impressive answer to the question I've seen, taking into account the very common use of all sex as an occasion to do evil and to call that evil what it is, evil. It was so much more realistic, so much more sophisticated, so much more liberal than the pseudo-sophisticated common received wisdom that when you can call something sex, that means acknowledging the evil done through it and often obviously practiced through it is not to be mentioned, that when you call it "sex" that means that any evil done from it i not allowed to be acknowledged as evil. Today, all too often, gay sex is the hate that you dare not name for fear of being considered uncool and unsophisticated. Only, and especially when you are a gay man to deny that is to deny one of the primary venues of spreading hate of gay men and others, the encouragement to oppression, harm, degradation, humiliation, maiming and death, even of murder.
Mixing messed up feelings of sex in it doesn't make it one bit less bad than when the most violent of straight gay bashers do exactly the same thing without any sexual arousal being involved. Tumblr is a far larger, far more extensive, far more influential venue of disseminating the hatred of LGBT people than the notorious Westboro Baptist Church of Fred Phelps and his tribe of vicious haters. I don't link to either straight or gay-porn sites that incite hatred and violence but the messaging, down to the URLs of some of them are indistinguishable, except that the alleged "Baptists" dirty the name of Jesus in their blasphemous depravity.
Trying to white-wash it by saying "First Amendment" is a lie, it is a dangerous lie that has been turned into the law of the land by the media industry using the language of civil liberties, sold by peddlers trained at Ivy League law schools to a very willing judiciary, either through the stupid idea that they were promoting liberalism or through the very sly motive of using the rulings that resulted to allow the corruption of the political process in favor of Republican-fascism. Once the corporate thugs on the Supreme Court figured out they could throw the anti-porn folks over the side and use "free speech" to enable billionaires to lie in the media, they took that opportunity every chance they could.
"When the old, white, straight theologian Walter Brueggemann was
ReplyDeleteasked about the morality of gay sex, he, very impressively and very
tellingly answered in terms of the generalized use of sex as an occasion
to sin among straight as well as LGBT people."
For what it's worth, I can't think of a single orgasm I've ever had to which the description sinful might apply. Maybe I've been lucky.
BTW, this thing you have for the old straight white guy theologian is pretty cult-ish. It's like you think he's found the meaning of life. I suspect the Manson Family felt the same way about Charlie.
ReplyDelete"It was so much more realistic, so much more sophisticated, so much more liberal than the pseudo-sophisticated common received wisdom that when you can call something sex, that means acknowledging the evil done through it and often obviously practiced through it is not to be mentioned, that when you call it "sex" that means that any evil done from it i not allowed to be acknowledged as evil."
ReplyDeleteYeah, because rape is not sex, and sexual assault is not sex; and it isn't. Except now it is, because all sex is rape, somehow.
Well, that's not fair, either. Having sex with an unconscious woman is rape, no doubt. But what about consensual sex when consent is withdrawn the next day, or days later? What about drunk sex when your conscious, but later you sober up and regret it? No evil can flow from sex, so such sex must be rape! QED!
Oh, what a tangled web we weave.....
I suspect that class or assumed class might have a role to play in that distinction, the presumed penetrated person would be assumed to be upper class. It's an important point and I can't say that I've been able to square how what is sold as sexual arousal on those porn sites is OK but consensual sex - even when it is not abusive and, maybe, even affectionate - can be turned, after the fact, into rape through "withdrawn consent" or "consent when drunk" or just for whatever reason. I would make the distinction between people realizing they've made fools of themselves and the conscious attempt to dehumanize, objectify, abuse and torture people which is advocated in so much porn. And as a reluctant student of it, it is getting worse, not every year but every few months when I go see what's getting posted now. The "Alpha male" sites which have proliferated are some of the worst, both gay and straight. But, then, it's exactly what heroes of the atheist-materialist "left" such as Sade advocated in their books which must not be burned. Only when it's videos, gifs and photos online it's so much easier and so much more gratifying for the would be sadistic sex murderer/rapist/torturer/enslaver.... to find instruction and inspiration from. I remember when that Castro guy was found to have kept those women imprisoned people wondered what caused him to do it, he said he was inspired by pornography and he was the only person in a position to know what inspired him. Yet we're not supposed to take that seriously.
ReplyDelete