What is #Pizzagate?

[slomo]

I really do hesitate to come into this, as I've been avoiding reading/participation the last week or so, but my attention was drawn to the present thread via Jasun's blog. As a resident gay male voice I probably should say something.

I think it's important to differentiate gay culture from gay people. The latter are simply individuals and should be judged on the merits of their characters as individuals (some are wonderful, some are assholes). The former is actually something that is reasonable to criticize. In my experience, gay male culture is somewhat driven by a non-negligible hedonistic minority who views sexual expression and exploration as the highest good, and thus any attack on any form of sexual expression might be viewed as an attack on the so-called "rights" of this very vocal minority. From my perspective, having been subjected to 30+ years of that BS (to a far lesser degree now than when I was younger, because I now avoid gay culture like the plague it feels like), some of that culture can justifiably be described as depraved. Not all of it, obviously, and of course not every gay person (not even most of us). But some of it, yes indeed. It's a cop-out to dismiss all such criticism as homophobia or hate-speech.

Once again: I do wish to remind people to be mindful to separate the sexual orientation of homosexuality from whatever dysfunction is displayed by the segments of the culture that happens to be mapped to that sexual orientation.

As for why I'm avoiding this subject: no good can come of it personally. I've described elsewhere what #PG seems to entail: loose associations that can be described as "smoke", but prove little by themselves. Since there is no political will to formally investigate whether there is or is not any "fire" (and I would not be surprised if there were), and such an investigation would be a necessary precursor to any form of justice, most of this discussion is pointless unless it helps you personally understand the rotten nature of the world we live in. I already have that understanding. I'm trying to figure out ways to make it less rotten in the immediate environment over which I have control, and #PG doesn't seem to be very helpful in that regard. My 2c...

[barracuda]

Certainly in the United States, het culture is driven by a hedonistic majority who views sex as the defining characteristic of just about everything, most of which can also be defined as depraved. I mean, really - pick up any magazine or tune into Game of Thrones. I don't personally qualify saying that as hate speech. It's reality, the bones of which I have witnessed intimately for forty years now. So I have a problem with qualifying gay culture as somehow inherently more perverse than het culture.

The question is this: do you think gay culture was literally created by child sexual abusers as cover for their dealings? Were the Stonewall riots some kind of ruse to get a pass to get to our children?

Okay, that last question was hyperbole, but here we are.

[divideandconquer]

I really do hesitate to come into this, as I've been avoiding reading/participation the last week or so, but my attention was drawn to the present thread via Jasun's blog. As a resident gay male voice I probably should say something.

I think it's important to differentiate gay culture from gay people. The latter are simply individuals and should be judged on the merits of their characters as individuals (some are wonderful, some are assholes). The former is actually something that is reasonable to criticize. In my experience, gay male culture is somewhat driven by a non-negligible hedonistic minority who views sexual expression and exploration as the highest good, and thus any attack on any form of sexual expression might be viewed as an attack on the so-called "rights" of this very vocal minority. From my perspective, having been subjected to 30+ years of that BS (to a far lesser degree now than when I was younger, because I now avoid gay culture like the plague it feels like), some of that culture can justifiably be described as depraved. Not all of it, obviously, and of course not every gay person (not even most of us). But some of it, yes indeed. It's a cop-out to dismiss all such criticism as homophobia or hate-speech.

Once again: I do wish to remind people to be mindful to separate the sexual orientation of homosexuality from whatever dysfunction is displayed by the segments of the culture that happens to be mapped to that sexual orientation.

As for why I'm avoiding this subject: no good can come of it personally. I've described elsewhere what #PG seems to entail: loose associations that can be described as "smoke", but prove little by themselves. Since there is no political will to formally investigate whether there is or is not any "fire" (and I would not be surprised if there were), and such an investigation would be a necessary precursor to any form of justice, most of this discussion is pointless unless it helps you personally understand the rotten nature of the world we live in. I already have that understanding. I'm trying to figure out ways to make it less rotten in the immediate environment over which I have control, and #PG doesn't seem to be very helpful in that regard. My 2c...

The media has always focused its attention on the hedonistic, highly sexualized minority, so the vast public has a very limited concept of what it is to be gay, especially when, up until very recently, most gay men were in the closet.

But I think "gay culture" has been set up, from the very beginning--Sodom and Gomorrah (scripture did not equate the Sodom story with homosexual acts but with excessive pride, inhospitality, greed etc...nothing to do with homosexuality), onward--as a scapegoat culture, so to speak, as the sins of the people--pedophilia--have been laid on its head as it was in this piece of trash:



And let's face it, heterosexual pedophilia/pederasty is much more acceptable than homosexual pedophilia/pederasty. The age of consent, prior to the 1890s, was 10-years old in most states according to a chart I saw in one of the voat threads. In Delaware, age 7. Although, I don't know if it's authentic.

[OP ED]

Um, guru has been saying for many threads that basically every portion of civilization that makes him uncomfortable is part of a millennia long program by pedo Satanism to shape the world. This is his default assumption which underlies his approach to all of these happenings.

[OP ED]

Although I might get "squalid vice" added to my business cards.

[slomo]

Certainly in the United States, het culture is driven by a hedonistic majority who views sex as the defining characteristic of just about everything, most of which can also be defined as depraved. I mean, really - pick up any magazine or tune into Game of Thrones. I don't personally qualify saying that as hate speech. It's reality, the bones of which I have witnessed intimately for forty years now. So I have a problem with qualifying gay culture as somehow inherently more perverse than het culture.

The question is this: do you think gay culture was literally created by child sexual abusers as cover for their dealings? Were the Stonewall riots some kind of ruse to get a pass to get to our children?

Okay, that last question was hyperbole, but here we are.

Yes, perversity is everywhere.

The problem is, the norms of heterosexual culture (if there is such a thing) -- the very thing drag culture mocks -- acts as a check on that perversity. Maybe not a very effective one, but it tries... On the other hand, there is a segment of gay male culture that prides itself on its sexually transgressive nature. And if you suggest that, oh, maybe, perhaps such transgressions might be self-destructive (at best), then you are immediately vilified as homophobic.

Don't believe me? Try suggesting to your average gay man that, from a public health long-term-dynamical-system perspective, PrEP (or rather the culture of its indiscriminate use) might actually be harmful in the long run, that it incentivizes the kind of sexually irresponsible behavior that led to the HIV epidemic in the first place. See what kind of feedback you get from him. (And no, I'm not blaming individuals for contracting HIV, I'm blaming the apologists/advocates for a culture that can't seem to understand how evolutionary dynamics and sexual promiscuity interact to create one superbug after another, regardless of whatever opinion Larry Kramer or Pat Robertson has.) It's actually harmful to real gay individuals to not criticize the dysfunctions of gay male culture.

I'm not sure about gay male culture being a so-called Trojan Horse for pedophilia. Certainly, yes, pederasty, as both my partner and I have experienced as victims (although the harm done to either of us was fairly minimal when compared with other experiences each of us has faced in our lives). That part is indistinguishable from heterosexuality, it's just that it seems to be OK for a straight man to lust after a 17-year-old girl, but it's not OK for a gay man to lust after a 17-year-old boy. But my experience is that NAMBLA was always kept at a far distance if it was even tolerated at all. Nevertheless, there is a certain kind of spiritual darkness that gay culture does seem to want to protect (mostly because it's too spineless to assert any kind of healthy boundary), and if you get sucked into it who knows where you go. I do have one former acquaintance who, long after I cut ties with him, did get arrested for possession of CP. I was not very surprised when I heard about it, not because I knew that he had any specific interest in CP, but rather it was a logical destination along the trajectory I saw him following before I decided I didn't want to spend any more time with him.

[American Dream]

Rape culture pervades all sexualities- from the queereest to the straightest, near as I can tell. Do those normative values that co hand in hand with cis/straight hegemony counter depravity? Possibly, in some times and places but an equally strong case can be made that they feed depravity, from the Marquis de Sade and Aleister Crowley, to wealthy televangelists and your next door neighbor.

[slomo]

Perhaps. But I don't think it's so much that normative values cause/feed depravity as much as they merely co-exist. But now you're talking philosophy, i.e. about the ontological nature of human evil.

My beef with gay culture is that, likely for historical reasons, it tolerates transgressive behavior in a way that normative cis/straight culture does not.

Anyway, I don't care. If you want to brand critics of gay culture (including myself) as homophobic or purveyors of "hate speech", be my guest. Those terms have lost all meaning to me.

[OP ED]

I don't care what anyone says AD, I know you're not a bot.

[Novem5er]

I love the fact that Rudy Giuliani quoting Voltaire didn't immediately tip off 100% of posters that it was a fake account. I mean, come on, guys . . .

[American Dream]

I'm not in favor of strengthening censorship powers by the State but I have no problem with alternative media such as pirate radio stations- and Rigorous Intuition for that matter- deciding to ban hate speech, and then doing so.

[barracuda]

there is a certain kind of spiritual darkness that gay culture does seem to want to protect ...

You can say the same thing about the Boy Scouts.

[slomo]

I wasn't aware that the Boy Scouts is OK with indiscriminate drug use and indiscriminate sex. Guess I missed out on a good time back in the day.

[slomo]

I'm not in favor of strengthening censorship powers by the State but I have no problem with alternative media such as pirate radio stations- and Rigorous Intuition for that matter- deciding to ban hate speech, and then doing so.

And I suppose you'll be the arbiter of "hate speech"?

Personally, I think that any time any RI poster objects to anything at all written by "slomo", it should be considered "hate speech" and that person should be summarily banned. After all, slomo is a biracial gay guy, so it logically follows that any speech against slomo is racist and anti-gay.

[liminalOyster]

I initially posted about "flashbacks" to homophobic hate speech and then got imprecise in trying to make a point. I was tfirst hinking about 1980s fundies and the Westboro bananas et al. In retrospect it wasn't effective so I offer my apologies.