Straight people don't know much about gay's huh?

[Ty]

I was testing the waters with a straight friend of mine, and she thinks that being gay is a choice =/ Shouldn't it be like taught at school or something that gay/lesbian people can't control their sexuallity? (I mean like, if they could, im sure they'd be straight to avoid the persecution.....) hmmm...what do you think?

[Jerr]

Maybe one day it will be tought in school but for now it is only really tought in a Psycology class.

I have my psyc book and I'll type the whole section about homosexuality out... eventually. lol

[Ty]

Yeah that would be cool, jerr lol.
I'd like to see what they mention bout it.

[Jerr]

It is pretty interesting... it will take me a while... I have nothing to do after class so I could go ahead and do that when I get home.

[Ty]

Thanks ^_^

What does everyone else think 'bout it?

[pirateninja]

I have one straight friend who I argued with over this..... in the middle of english (our teacher threatened to put us in a boxing ring) but I was backed up by a couple of other straight friends who "understand" that you can't choose who you fall in love with.

I dunno, I've had a couple of comments made to me in the past that I'm "not normal" or straight girls after finding out I'm a lesbian immediatly assuming I'm in love with them. I guess it depends which straight people you're talking to.

[Ty]

Yeah i hate that too....just cause your gay doesnt mean every guys attractive to ya >_>

[Jerr]

Ezactly!!! You can have a friend and not be in love with them!

[pirateninja]

It's like, if a guy passes a group of girls, the girls don't care, because they have it programmed into their head that guys don't fall in love with every girl they see. But, as soon as a lesbian walks by its;

"OMGz she was totally starin at our legz!!!111"
"Omg she was undressing us wiv er mind!!!!!"
"OMfg she is such a lez!!!!!11"

And so on

[Ty]

Yeah....at our school theres a lesbian P.E teacher and you can imagine the rumours about that =/

"OMG DYKE!!!!!"
"Haha look at that dyke"

[pirateninja]

Yep. Every female PE teacher is a lesbian and every male PE teacher is a pervert. It's a horrible stereotype, but it happens.

[Paul_UK]

Maybe one day it will be tought in school but for now it is only really tought in a Psycology class.

I have my psyc book and I'll type the whole section about homosexuality out... eventually. lol

As an aside, if you have a scanner and some OCR software like Textbridge or Omnipage, that'll do most of the conversion to text for you. ;)

[Jerr]

As an aside, if you have a scanner and some OCR software like Textbridge or Omnipage, that'll do most of the conversion to text for you. ;)

...I don't.... :tears:

[Ilayis]

some people are just sooo close minded

[SpikySpice]

My older sister in University, she said she's been learning bout the human's brian XD

She didnt say being gay is a choice, but she said cuz they are affected by the enviroment, which is true, yeha i agree, but she said we gay poeple could try to turn around cuz it's also in your brain, which most straight folks always say, while i argue some can not turn cuz we are borned gay genetically from inside our mother's tummies. And yeah tho i know maybe I was affected by the enviroment, but if i have a choice to turn around 160 degrees, i wont do that

[Psych!]

Most straights don't know anything, they just assume. Like my family. They say being gay is the work of the devil, that once you fall into "that," you can't turn back 'cause your brain will rot.

:confused:

Some of the people at school think that just 'cause someone is gay, they're gonna try to rape you. It's stupid. Sometimes it just pi**** me off that these people are so ignorant. It's even hurtful, what they can say just makes you feel like crap, even if you know it's not true.

[step49x]

...I don't.... :tears:
Hey, I think just some readable-quality pictures would suffice for most people.

[Louise]

I wanted to see some of the replies before I jumped in as a straight person:

Homosexuality has been taboo in our society for the last few hundred years, if not more. Religion and social 'morality' has branded homosexuality as evil, the work of the devil, perverse and any number of degrading words to describe it.

We are now, using little baby steps, comming into an era of enlightenment where homosexuality is becoming more 'acceptable' thanks to the hard work of gay support groups.

In most of your grandparent's generation, they were told that if they masturbated they would go blind, or their teeth would fall out or other quite ridiculous things, they were raised believing these things so you can imagine the education on homosexuality.

How do you want homosexuality to be taught in schools when only a few decades ago it was still classed as a mental illness? There are no clear scientific reasons why Paul (just an example) is gay and not his brother John. Since this phenomenon cannot be explained either by the scientifics or by the psychological community this scares a lot of people. The unknown world is a scary place and it is easier to place it as unacceptable or evil than to deal with it. There is still the shadow of our upbringing hanging over us and quite honestly, as a straight person I had never really given it much thought.

If a subject doesn't concern you, you don't tend to think about it that much. If a close member of your family is struck down with lukemia you will probably learn all about it, what it means to have to find the time to have someone almost permantently at the hospital, how the hospital works, support groups for funding visits for family that live far away, what it feels like to have you parents constantly worried about the health of your brother or sister to the exclusion of all else, to have one parent permanently absent, the financial strain, etc.

These are all things we (healthy people) don't think of because they don't touch us, it is the same thing for straight people where homosexuality is concerned, plus of course the complication of hundreds of years of prejudice.

Most of the negative comments you get from people about homosexuality are from ingnorant people parrot repeating of things they have heard either directly or indirectly. Open minded intelligent people are often willing to discuss it, look into it and then form their own opinion.

As I said we are coming slowly into an era of enlightenment; homosexuality used to be illegal, you could be thrown in prison!!!, the age of consent has been lowered in England, it is no longer considered a mental illness, there are support groups that would never have dared to exist 20 years ago, etc. It may not be much but if you look globally over the last 100 years huge strides in understanding have been made.

But a quick answer to your question, NO straight people don't know much about gays, but in our defence why should we? It is not that we are not open or are ALL prejudiced it is just for the most part we haven't really had to think about it... it is just something we are vaguely aware of like famine in far off countries and genetic illnesses (sorry if the anology is offensive it is not meant to be).

I get the impression that this generation of young adults is much more open to homosexuality and most people who have come out to their friends get a 90% positive reaction. Progress is being made!

[waitingsucks]

yea this is quite a popular debate. The whole thing is that we know it's not a choice. But still we hate it when other people don't see it. I think that this short of thing isn't going to end anytime soon. It's frustrating so much that the other person isn't even open to the idea that it's not a choice.

I posted a thread awhile back about the exact same thing. check it out it's pretty interesting anf there's some great comebacks to people who says it's a choice.
here it is http://www.emptyclosets.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3604

[CrimsonThunder]

Of course straight people don't know everything about being gay. They don't sit there and research it they just know what they hear.

[sngl]

Most straight people don't know anything about it...like for ex. one of my friends built her entire knowledge of gay people on one thing: a male prostitute once wanted to offer his services to her uncle, who is a truck driver, and now she thinks that all gay people are probably prostitues...

Usually people just don't care until they don't have someone close in their lives who is gay

[pirateninja]

The truth is, straight people won't understand what it's like to be gay because they don't feel what we feel. A straight girl will never know what it's like to be me because she's not attracted to other girls.

Straight people will not have to deal with what gay people have to, because if sexuality is not a choice then a straight person can't say "I'll see what it feels like to be gay for a while", they will never be able to fully understand because they can't put themselves in that position.

One thing that does drive me insane is when some straight people find out I'm gay they say "Oh, I'm so sorry," as if I have a disease or something. And I'm thinking (and sometimes replying) "Well, why?". I'm not dying, I'm not strange and I'm not unhappy with who I am. Sometimes (when seriously p!ssed off) I go off on a rant to them: "I am happy with who I am, my parents and friends are happy with who I am so why should you pity me for it?"

Yes I know it's not "the norm", and sometimes it's not desirable but I personally would not change who I am. As far as I'm concerned the only time I'm slightly unhappy with being gay is when straight people are affected by it, and even then I get over it, because they don't understand and I can't change that. I can't let the prejudices of people get me down.

So yes, generally, straight people will never be able to completely and fully understand what it is like to be gay. But I'll never understand what it's like to be straight.

EDIT: Sorry If I went off on one up there, I really need to know when to stop ranting :D

[Rette]

I dunno, most straight people seem to be fine. A lot are a little naive about homosexuality, but for the most part receptive. Sure, there's a few willfully ignorant jerkwads out there, but from what I've seen, that's not really the norm.

Of course, the jerkwads tend to be a lot louder than the rest...*sigh*.