The final say on the "Gay" issue!

[Pandora]

If only age came with something... :rolleyes:

Pandora, please DON'T take my comments personally - at least you were brave enough to say what you thought - and to apologise?

I was really trying to use your words to get to others?

xx

Nicki,
No worries whatsoever honey. I'm grateful for all the candid comments on these forums. The one thing I really want to take away from all this is to learn and grow as a person. And I can only do that by listening to you and so many others like you in here that have so many great thoughts to offer. One thing I have learned about accepting who I am is that I couldn't do that until I learned acceptance of all others, regardless of who they were.

Love and kisses!
Pandora

[Valeria]

How bout? "Reasonable people do not casually discuss personal sexuality, regardless of their preferences"

That might be nice, but if I had a dollar for everytime someone asked me "so what does your husband do?" or "does your husband help you much with the baby?", or volunteered some detail about their boyfriend or fiancee or husband, I'd be a wealthy woman. Straight people discuss their sexuality all the time. They discuss mine too - they just assume I'm straight.

[Valeria]

When asked if you are gay (and you aren't), simply look at them and say...

Yes, I'm a lesbian/gay man (for our handsome FTM).

That should shut them up long enough for you to have a chuckle at their expense.

I know that you and Lex have already discussed this, and I know that you mean well, and I agree completely with the spirit of your post.

But FWIW, I'm not certain I'd be pleased with people who don't share my orientation (or possibly even my gender) coopting part of my identity for a "prank" - even when they've been provoked with a question they find tiresome.

[battybattybats]

That might be nice, but if I had a dollar for everytime someone asked me "so what does your husband do?" or "does your husband help you much with the baby?", or volunteered some detail about their boyfriend or fiancee or husband, I'd be a wealthy woman. Straight people discuss their sexuality all the time. They discuss mine too - they just assume I'm straight.

Public casual discussion of sexuality was an important part of womens liberation. I don't see why it can't be the same for everyone else. Heterosexuality is everywhere. Billboards, product packaging. It's not just magazines and tv it is everywhere. It's so ubiquitous most straight people don't notice. Straight people hold hands in public all the time, kiss in public, lots of things.

The only way anyone else will be seen as equal and normal is if they too are public so much and so often that everyone else just gets used to it. The answer to peoples discomfort with homosexuality, heteronormative assumptions etc is more casual and public discussion of sexuality not less.

[DemonicDaughter]

I know that you and Lex have already discussed this, and I know that you mean well, and I agree completely with the spirit of your post.

But FWIW, I'm not certain I'd be pleased with people who don't share my orientation (or possibly even my gender) coopting part of my identity for a "prank" - even when they've been provoked with a question they find tiresome.

Well, technically, its not a "prank". If society is going to define a man as someone wearing "such and such" and having "masculine" features, then any FTM in here can call themselves a man without batting an eye. And seeing as society wants so desperately to label any masculine female as being gay, then in a sense, its feasible. A "man" finding a male attractive is considered gay. Just as a "girl" finding a woman attractive would be the same thing.

As long as we draw lines in the sand to separate us from other each other, we are going to continue to have to defend our liberties. I'm not insulted if anyone, gay, straight, bi or otherwise, professes to be any sexual orientation, truthful or not. You can claim to be a pink and purple polka dotted, glow in the dark, blow up sheep for all I care.

I am insulted not that someone feels the need to state a sexual preference, but that it is done so to the degree of separating themselves from another group because of stereotypes, fears, labels, stigmas, etc.

What gets me the most is this site is a community of individuals of all walks of life, the entire spectrum of the human race in gender, background, lifestyles, incomes, race, ethnicities, educations, etc... YET to HAVE to ensure that NO ONE mistakes you (collectively) for being gay or bi, in THIS community of accepting, loving, understanding and wonderful group of people is not only unnecessary, but completely irrelevant.

[Sandi jo]

I had to work most of the day then I woke up to this thread,I wish I had been home to discuss this in real time.I really don't care what anyone thinks or says about me.Why would we care if someone thought we were different,just by dressing different by default we are different but we are not all the same so in truth we are all different from each other,am I making any sense?It just upsets me that we have to but labels on everything.Let me wake up and I'll be clearer about this

[deja true]

"...One thing I have learned about accepting who I am is that I couldn't do that until I learned acceptance of all others, regardless of who they were. " - Pandora

This is the most important lesson I ever learned here. And I wish everyone else would learn it, too.

I'll say I'm tired of all this labelling argument, but I guess we have to keep doing it to keep re-inforcing the message.

deja


But I swear to god, I will never,ever consider doing it with a pink and purple dotted, blow-up sheep. Unless they're 100% straight, like me. Sort of....

[DemonicDaughter]

But I swear to god, I will never,ever consider doing it with a pink and purple dotted, blow-up sheep. Unless they're 100% straight, like me. Sort of....

*Puts on a pink and purple dotted, blow-up sheep costume* :D How firm are you on that "100%"? Any leeway? I'm about 50%, is that acceptable?

[deja true]

Okay, that's the hottest dotted sheep I've ever seen. I guess the 100% is negotiable. But ...but...I'm on top, okay?

[DemonicDaughter]

Okay, that's the hottest dotted sheep I've ever seen. I guess the 100% is negotiable. But ...but...I'm on top, okay?

The whole time? Can't I be on top some of the time? PLEASE

[deja true]

Welllll, okay!..I guess everything's negotiable, isn't it?

[DemonicDaughter]

Welllll, okay!..I guess everything's negotiable, isn't it?

And isn't that really a point of this post? LOL!

[Sandi jo]

If its ok I want to be on the bottom sometimes

[DemonicDaughter]

If its ok I want to be on the bottom sometimes

Woo hoo!!!! We're making a CD/DD sammich!

[Leo Lane]

Thinking about sexuality, and of course lots of other things, in rigid binary ways is just something that humans do. Unless you are unusually reflective, or have had experiences that have made you think, you subscribe more or less to your society's system of thinking about this, that and the other. I'm sure most of us make crude oversimplifying generalisations about other things and people of which we have less personal experience than we do of cross-dressing and transgenderism.

Nowadays, the system works like this: what is feminine is attracted to what is masculine and vice versa. Therefore a guy who does girly things, or a girl who does guy things, must be gay -- it doesn't make sense otherwise! Once upon a time in Greece the system was different: Plato, in The Symposium, writes that like is drawn to like, so men who fancy handsome youths are more masculine than men who fancy young women!

[DemonicDaughter]

Thinking about sexuality, and of course lots of other things, in rigid binary ways is just something that humans do. Unless you are unusually reflective, or have had experiences that have made you think, you subscribe more or less to your society's system of thinking about this, that and the other. I'm sure most of us make crude oversimplifying generalisations about other things and people of which we have less personal experience than we do of cross-dressing and transgenderism.

Nowadays, the system works like this: what is feminine is attracted to what is masculine and vice versa. Therefore a guy who does girly things, or a girl who does guy things, must be gay -- it doesn't make sense otherwise! Once upon a time in Greece the system was different: Plato, in The Symposium, writes that like is drawn to like, so men who fancy handsome youths are more masculine than men who fancy young women!

Very nicely put. Though I agree that almost everyone makes general assumptions regarding sexuality, that isn't really the issue. What is the issue, is that with so many here questioning their sexuality while making statements still professing heterosexuality shows the true conflict most CDers must face at one point or another. Yet so few actually come to grips with the reality of their own statements. They say, "I'm not gay but... I find other CDers in dress attractive! What does this mean?!" It means you found something feminine attractive. End. Of. Story.

It is insulting to have people assume your sexual orientation based on stereotypical assumptions. It is tiring to read a thread that has nothing to do with sexuality and see a post that reads, "I'm straight, yet [fill in the blank]" or "I do/think/say/want/fantasize/wonder/flirt/joke/whatever [fill in the stereotypical "gay" assumption]... am I really gay?" No. You just allow society to dictate your responses to things.

Again, for a community filled with individuals that do not live in a mainstream lifestyle, to have these assumptions and statements made seem just as hypocritical as what anyone outside this lifestyle would say regarding CDers.

We do not need to keep dividing the human race until everyone is in their own little category! Who really gives a rats anything if you are gay or not? You know you are/aren't. You're partner knows you are/aren't. Who after that matters? If someone else came up to you and insisted you were or weren't you would most likely think their opinion doesn't matter anyhow. So why does it here?