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By (user no longer on site) OP
over a year ago
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I used to be homophobic, so I'll give you the reason why its still a problem today, from the viewpoint of the pre enlightened me.
For years the notion of being gay was seen as being less than a real man, the words used like poof, ponce, Nancy boy, and queer, were by design, used to mark people out as being weak and different, in a society that made everyone try to put themselves into a group, and stay there until their dying day.
My parents grew up in a time where, not only was it looked down on to be gay, but carried a risk of prison, and so as is the case with most people, in my early teens, I took on their attitudes towards the world, and that included the attitudes towards race, homosexuality, and gender roles, within the family dynamic, I know, not the kinky butler you all know and are indifferent about today eh.
But as time went on, and I started to reach out into an exciting world that was changing and evolving, I changed, early on I found that I couldn't understand why the people around me, had the attitudes they did, I couldn't understand why my peers, would go mad if they saw their girlfriend talking to another lad (this is around the 14-16 age) and inwardly questioned the reasons why it was the done thing to bully people, for being anything less than a hard but, but to defended those people, would have been social suicide, so I continued to be like everyone else in the hope that it would cover how I was different.
Then the best thing in the world happened, the 90s.
I had left school, got a job, and I had freedom, I made my way out into the rave scene, and started to encounter openly gay people for the first time, making friends and realising that I'm not so good looking that every gay man wants to fuck me (some do, but not all)
It was when I started going to places like tin tin's that the homophobia vanished into the night sky, about the same time that my brother came out, and I saw the hate that the family had for him, for not lying to them, that was the final nail in the coffin of homophobia for me, but I know that it was a series of events that led me to this place of enlightenment, because I see people who I grew up with, who haven't grown, and still have the attitudes handed down to them from previous generations, stuck in some kind of time warp, where the fashions change but the people stay the same.
Ignorance, is the danger in our society, not homophobia, racism, sexism, or any of the other crap, they are just symptoms of the bigger problem, we're all guilty of a form of ignorance, and its called division, no matter how big or small it is, divisive attitudes toward race, down to the "banter" between rival football teams (I'm guilty of that) we all do it, and that is why homophobia, is still alive, its wounded, sure, but its going to take a lot if change before we can kill it forever, that's if we can kill it, before ignorance and division kills us all first. |
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