Quote:
Originally Posted by GinX
I think this problem stems from the fact that we tend to identify and label certain acts as being gay or straight rather defining the person as gay or straight. A man who enjoys being anally stimulated/penetrated is not necessarily gay...he simply finds pleasure in the purely mechanical act. Remember, the prostate is an erogenous zone in the male. If a man asks his wife/girlfriend to do him with a strap-on from time to time, does that make him gay?
Hell yes.
Ask the average straight woman what she thinks of such activity. The vast majority of straight women consider those actions gay.
And I don't think you should ignore their opinion. Please correct me if I am wrong, but I think your position is that acts or actions don't necessarily define a person; instead, a man is defined by how he fancies himself. Surely though it is absurd to claim a man who eats meat is not a carnivore if he believes that he is actually a vegetarian!
Just as there are different ways to eat meat, there are also different ways to have gay sex, such as receiving anal sex or being intimate with a male. I believe that actions speak louder than words, and no matter how much a guy protests, if he participates in gay sex, then he is gay.
As a corollary, a guy who insists that he is gay is not taken seriously if he has not had gay sex. Thus, Norm Peterson on Cheers was not considered gay even though he insisted such, so as to be taken seriously as an interior designer. But if Norm the interior designer had revealed that he enjoyed buttsecks, even if it was only with Vera, then he would have fulfilled the gay criteria for most people and probably gone on to be a successful interior designer.
Quote:
Originally Posted by GinX
Another part of this issue is that some men who fall into the aforementioned category are often derided themselves and frequently taunted with the epithets of 'faggot' and 'queer'...believe me, I know because I happen to fall into this category.
I'm not sure what you're trying to say. Are you saying that you are 'queer', or are you saying that people taunt you with the 'queer' epithet? 'Faggot' is an epithet and and 'queer' can be an epithet, depending on the context, similar to 'honky' and 'gringo', respectively. But 'gay' is not an epithet, nor is 'white'. Both are labels that have utility.
Quote:
Originally Posted by GinX
I think the most important thing to do is not to worry about attaching a label to anyone and rather just make the earnest attempt to understand another person's ideas and motivations.
Gay is just about the only mainstream label that is still rejected by many people who are arguably gay. When it comes to this label alone, some gays reject it on the basis that "labels don't matter." I believe this denial of reality is actually motivated by shame. No one should feel ashamed of being gay.