What fuels homophobia today?
Sometimes I think Alan Turing’s sexual orientation shouldn’t be as much of a mention as it often is. He shouldn’t be known as a homosexual in the first place but instead as the extraordinary code-breaking, brilliant individual he was, thinking ahead of the time he lived in. Then again, Turing’s sexuality shaped his life and death on a daily basis from an early age on. Today we know about Alan’s affairs, of which none turned out to be what we consider a “stable relationship”. There’s no shame in talking about the mathematician having intercourse with all vivid kinds of men. Turing may have been naive at times but he wasn’t shy about his love life. He appeared to be a proud homosexual, admitted to live his “criminal” tendencies facing the police and broke his engagement to Joan Clarke whom he couldn’t marry without being untruthful to both of them.
“Homophobia”, the disapproval of everything homosexual, has a cruel and ever-lasting history. Turing and thousands of others suffered from such hateful societies, threatening them with imprisonment, chemical castration, electric shocks and alike. Although homosexuality is widely accepted and no longer considered an “illness” in many countries, homophobic thinking still exists throughout the world – possibly more strongly expressed and practiced through insults, beatings, rape and murder than ever – in the 21st century. Since these “witch hunts” to plug the “evil” from the earth are legalized by anti-gay laws in countries such as Russia, I haven’t the foggiest why these homophobic attacks aren’t on our weekly news. If we’re supposed to look at the dead from Gaza, why not shove into our faces the bloodied and strangled because of their sexuality?
Being an openly pro-gay person, the images the media refuses to let us see made me question: What fuels homophobia today? What made this kind of thinking survive? Clearly what comes to mind are the religion, church, culture and tradition. Someone once argued with me that “a gay couple isn’t a traditional family”. Yes, right, I agree. Biologically speaking, there is no way of having a mother-father-child family without having a third party involved. Religious or non-religious, parental up-bringing obviously has massive impacts on how we experience other individuals. I’d never doubt nor be disrespectful about it but why not allow new, modern forms of families? Clearly anti-gay laws influence our behaviour, whether or not one supports or goes against homosexuals. Naturally nobody really wants to get in trouble for other people’s business.
The big deal, though, I believe is: Firstly the term “love” in general is utterly spoiled thanks to media, accessibility to pornography and, to name just one more, our verbal and written vernacular language. We tend to love things and people immediately without giving them all too much meaning in our lives. Our expectations towards our love life are exaggerated from within ourselves and from outside. Long-lasting relationships have to be build within a split second, chosen partners have be nothing but successful and beautiful. Maybe faithful, too, otherwise the “long-lasting” part doesn’t work. You get what I’m trying to say…
Secondly, in my opinion, there’s a huge misunderstanding out there of the term “homosexual”, today more commonly known as “being gay” or simply “gay”. I imagine people with homophobic tendencies fear, …have a fear of what exactly? If a hundred more people come out as gay, it’s not like the human race will vanish from the earth! I guess anti-gay people, by the mention of “gay”, immediately only picture the sexual aspect of a same-sex relationship. Do you fear the “disgusting” sexual act between male/male and female/female? It may not come natural to you but it really is just another form of sex, not necessarily a rough form. I know many do not think of gays and lesbians as equal human beings but they are – in every possible way with feelings, passion, trust, hugs, kisses etc. like heterosexuals. Not every same-sex relationship is meant to be brief and intercourse. Instead most of them are meant to last passionately.
Today in Uganda, to mention one country, homosexuals are named and located in newspapers to help the police do its work. Alan Turing was publicly exposed the same way in 1952’s Britain. The code-breaker accepted chemical castration rather than imprisonment for his then “gross indecency”. Further in history chemical castration has always been and is still being used against sex offenders and paedophiles. Homosexuals are listed with paedophiles, basically child trafficking as well if you like, in Uganda today.
That’s how far we’ve moved on, world – and I haven’t even been exploring what else many other homophobic countries do to people.
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