Throughout history, queer people, (that is anyone who identifies as anything other than ‘straight’), have had their whole lives politicised, simply by virtue of loving the ‘wrong’ gender.
What should be the purest thing there is- love– has been made into something taboo, something that must be hidden, as we have been told time and time again by…
- The media, that tries to erase us.
When TV ads are all ‘cereal packet’ families- nuclear, heteronormative, oppressive. - The courts, that legislate against us.
When acting on one’s desire can lead to a beating, prison, or even, death. - ‘God’ (religion) which, like the government, subjects us to enforced silencing, working to exclude the ‘unwanted’ through fearmongering. ‘Live your life in this way or you’ll go to hell.’
- The politicians, who consider our lives expendable.
When, in the aids crisis, they failed to act, thus soliciting the legalised murder of tens of millions.
‘If I die, it is because a handful of people in power, in organised religions and political institutions, believe that I am expendable.’
David Wojnarowicz, Close To The Knives.
A far more dangerous disease than aids though, a far more dangerous disease than anything that has swept the nation in human history, is that of delusionality, a disease which is proving hard to treat, even after all these years…
A fear of diversity.
Characterised by symptoms such as; angry outbursts, hysteria, and, most dangerously, the failure to recognise when one is riddled with disease, this fear (i.e. bigotry) gets passed on from generation to generation…
Every time the media tells a story about an already marginalised group, depicting them as the instigator of society’s ills, little ears are listening. And those little-eared kids become big-mouthed adults, their minds infected with fascist ideology, filled with hate toward people who are ‘different.’
And all that hate has to go somewhere…
Onto the latest scapegoat.
‘Our society desperately needs monsters to reclaim its own moral virginity.’
Sylvere Lotringer.
In the pyramids of power and confinement, one demon gets replaced by another at a moment’s notice.
If it’s not gay people, then it’s trans people.
If it’s not trans people, then it’s immigrants…
Always ‘them’, never ‘us’, the government creates legislation that makes marginalised groups the scapegoat for all of society’s woes.
‘Don’t look at the fascists over here who are actively supporting the continuation of genocide, what about the two men who are kissing over there?’
It’s easier for them to pass on the blame than to admit that the source of those woes is a little bit (a lot) closer to home…
But where does it come from, this need to ‘other’ people who are different?
Why is the desire shown by two consenting adults who might just happen to be of the same gender, anyone else’s concern?
‘Only a person with a twisted and repressed sexuality would think it is their right to tell consenting adults that they cannot explore their own bodies.’
^ And ‘repressed’ sexuality certainly is in a society that is shrouded in so much shame around desire (or rather, I should say, nonheterosexual desire)… With people being forced to remain ‘in the closet’, not just in terms of sexual orientation but in terms of sexual preferences, too.
This is why sex work exists, because the demand is there. Because people are willing to pay for the privilege to be open with their desires, away from the watchful eye of a society that tells them that what they desire is ‘wrong’ if it doesn’t live up to the three ‘M’s’- marriage, monogamy, missionary (*vanilla).
Men who are submissive in a society that tells them that they must be the dominant partner:
‘What are you, gay?’
‘Where is your toxic masculinity?’
An image of two consenting men being intimare more offensive to some than an image of a woman being raped.
But why?
Why is anything outside of ‘vanilla’ seen as extreme?
Extreme to whom?
Who gets to decide these rules?
As with everything in life, the people in power, the systems of oppression get the final say…
Most notably in love, that system being; religion.
When love is founded on religion, and religion is founded on oppression through fearmongering, the pressure we feel to live a certain way is based on just that- fear.
What we have grown up considering to be the ‘epitome’ of love- marriage, is a religious ceremony. A woman being ‘given away’ by her father because, ‘God Forbid a woman be able to function without a man!!’
What we have grown up considering to be the ‘only way to date’, monogamy, is a forced ideal. Albeit, now we have choices and relationships are opening up, however, it hasn’t always been this way. Adultery used to, not only be illegal, but punishable by death even, in some cases (and still is, in some countries)…
What we have grown up considering to be the only ‘right’ sexual orientation, heterosexuality, is based on religious teachings in the bible;
‘It’s Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.’
^ A wholly ridiculous quote given by Christians who seemingly have a personal vendetta against anyone who is not heterosexual/anyone who diverts away from their bigoted ‘moral code.’
I just don’t understand how the same religion that preaches ‘unconditional love’ can exclude queer love from this. Surely ‘unconditional’ means all-encompassing, not pick and choose based on who we supposedly ‘choose’ (it’s not a choice) to fall in love with.
There is no magical switch that one can press that will put a stop to their same sex attraction, because sexuality is in-built, like our hair colour- natural.
We can dye our hair, and tell people that we’re naturally blonde when we were born with hair as black as coal, but the reality is that dying it will not change what is underneath the dye, and unless we redye it every single week, let our need to dye our hair blonde take over our life, our natural hair colour will always come through because it’s just that, natural.
And the same is true of sexuality. We can tell people that we’re straight, go along with heteronormativity, dating the opposite sex, but our same-sex attraction will always be there because, like our natural hair colour, we cannot change it.
We can cover it up and pretend that it’s something else, but it will always be there.
And so, when people use the argument that; ‘same-sex attraction isn’t a sin, but acting on it is’, what do they want us to do? Spend our whole lives pretending to be something that we’re not, dying our hair, wearing a hat to stop the roots coming through?
What a wasted life that would be.
They tell us that we will go to hell if we act on our desire, but by not acting on it, we are already in it.
It genuinely makes me repulse when I read comments from people who still claim that sexuality is a choice, because to them I say, why would anyone choose it?
When the whole world is geared up for straight people- girl meets boy, they fall in love, get married, have kids, live happily ever after (it’s in every fairy story), why would anyone choose to make everything harder by not being straight?
If sexuality were a choice, then why would anyone choose to make life so much harder for themselves? The rationale isn’t there. The math isn’t mathing.
When being gay means that we are born with the crosshairs of a rifle scope printed on our backs, why would we choose that?
To be on a date with a woman and feel on edge, constantly. Less likely to be the victim of a hate crime than gay men, more likely to be viewed through a lens of pornography- thinking that two women kissing is performative, for the male gaze, that it’s all for men, to get their attention.
(That is to say, less likely to be beaten up or murdered, more likely to be raped).
If homophobes were less quick to brandish hate, hate which, as previously discussed, isn’t preconditioned into us, but is learned, through the messages we internalise, often subconsciously, in our early years, if they could just spend a little bit of time asking themselves what it is that actually ‘offends’ them about same-sex desire, then I think that we would have less homophobic people in the world, for there is no rational explanation that can be provided.
By all means, if you think that you have got an explanation that would solve decades of debate surrounding our right to simply exist as queer people, then do let me know in the comments!! It would be interesting to hear how society has corrupted your mind into one of hate too…
But, in the meantime, I hope that this article has made you think that maybe, just maybe, the problem isn’t with gay people at all, but with society.*
(*No maybe about it, it is).
The problem is not with queer people turning you gay, the problem is with a society that dictates that ‘you must be straight.’
The same people who excuse their blatant homophobia away because ‘queerness is corrupting the minds of our youth’/’turning straight people gay’, are oblivious to the fact that their minds have already been corrupted, by society….
As in the title of this article:
No one is born homophobic.
ANARKISS 