Unnatural Sex Acts

I was today treated to a conversation about sexuality that would not have been out of place in the Middle Ages. A group of women were discussing the death of Stephen Gately.

I say a group of women but there were three, the oldest and most moronic of the group seemed responsible for dragging the other two into supporting her views. I’ll return to how that happened later.

What first made me pay attention to the conversation was the scandalised tones the eldest woman, we’ll call her the homophobe shall we, was using to describe what she had heard/read about Gately’s death. According to her take on things “They [gay men] are like that aren’t they. They were having a threesome. They were in bed while he was dying in the other room. And he had been drinking and taking drugs you know, and they said he didn’t drink or take drugs. Well they were wrong …”. To sum up the other comments the homophobe made, she believes that gay men are having sex with multiple partners, drinking, taking drugs and partying and their behaviour is “unnatural”. She rounded off with “You’ll never convince me otherwise.”

I’m inclined to agree. She has led a sheltered and some might say utterly boring life. Married young and bearing a number of children to the same man, now in a routine that she breaks up by watching soap operas, going out to the same pub every weekend and gossiping about everyone to fill the yawning void where her life should be.

I was inclined to ask a question when I had heard the torrent of bigoted nonsense that poured from her shrivelled little mind and only knowledge of what a vindictive person she is overrode my seething anger and stopped me from doing so. It wasn’t that I believe all gay men are perfect, monogamous or totally clean living. They are human like the rest of us and have faults, like the rest of us. Nor was it the allegations she made (presumably repeated from a newspaper story or TV show) because I don’t know the circumstances of Gately’s death and am therefore not able to comment.

No, what really got to me was that one of the other women who were clucking in agreement at her outrageous proclamations has a gay cousin!

I don’t blame her for agreeing with the homophobe, though I think a more neutral response to the shit she came out with would have been more appropriate, and the reason I don’t blame her is simple. If she had contradicted the homophobe she would have blotted her copy book and been the subject of bitchy comments when her back was turned.

This is how prejudice begins, festers and survives. Bigots are by their nature vociferous, apt to over-simplification and react angrily to challenges to their views. It is in the nature of prejudice to select the morsels of information and misinformation that support a view and ignore the rest. Woe betide anyone who presents a reasoned argument to the contrary.

And one final point after my little rant about homophobes, her in particular. If she was so opposed to homosexuality and the “activities” of gay men, why was she watching the TV show or reading the newspaper article?

Does she enjoy being morally outraged? I think so.