Gay Men and Mischievous Boys

#86 by hamidm2
in pakistan we have been trying to reinvent economics and science and to bring them in line with our own ``traditions``
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I would disagree - in Pakistan, there is an identity crisis and some people are trying to manufacture an artificial tradition which never existed; if Pakistan would really look at its traditions: British Colonial, Punjabi, Sindhi, and others which are older than a thousand years, I am sure there would be less conflicts.

maybe you should revisit the issues of sati and the caste system while you are at it
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Cheap shot, but I will respond in a dignified manner. Every tradition has some good and some evil, and when we talk about re-examining traditions, we are not talking about bringing back ancient evils, some of which have been exaggerated (e.g., sati).

music - if that is the case then why does most of the music being produced today sound more and more like western music - idon`t know too many gen-xer`s who know diddly about classical indian music ! ......... culture - does that mean bollywood
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In South India, knowledge of classical music is, in fact, comparitively widespread. In North India, due to puritinical attitudes, it was not widespread, but is undergoing a revival (as you can see if you read any interview with any North Indian musician, e.g., the latest Shivkumar Sharma interview in Rave - an article that is available online). However, classical music is very serious and nobody can listen to classical music all day. People listen to popular music which is a mixture of folk, international and classical influences.

But I don`t know what the point is, since the superiority of Indian popular music is evident. Western popular music is limited whereas Indian popular music includes not only songs which are partially derived from Western music but songs from a much wider variety of sources. For example, Indian popular music includes not only Westernized songs such as ``Dum Maro Dum`` but also purely classical songs such as ``Bol Re Papihara`` from Guddi, not to mention qawwalis, bhajans, ...

Since you brought it up, I would say that popular music is a perfect example of use and reinterpretation of Indian traditions in a modern context.

nobody borrows milk and sugar from their neighbor like they used to - heck most of the people living in urban areas don`t even know who their neighbor is - just like in the west
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Who says? I live in Bangalore and we have an elderly couple next door and take them to the doctor whenever necessary. My wife helped my next door neighbour`s daughter get a student internship during her final year. I could give you many more instances.

JackAssTruly #105:
how about marrying barely legals as an idea for a sin and the ones who make them out to be their ``Role Models`` as sinners. chew on that, forget the lollipops.

Re: # 104

Low number of interacts??.Just check out the essay by Mr.Gill on `NPT`.And, he says the world is gonna end `cause of our weaponry.The man is drowning himself in morbid thoughts such as the above, while an essay on the right to have anal intercourse , unimpeded by any law or human being elicts over a hundred responses!!!.There are so many gay men around and we don`t acknowledge it , in our part of the world.I say let freedom reign.Let the archaic laws be suspended, let the world enjoy sodomy once again.For, we drastically need to reduce the population and this is the only way to do it, it seems, short of forcible sterilization.I say, make homosexuality legal.Let us shine light , where the sun don`t shine a whole lot!!!.Ameeeen.

hate the sin, but lollipops for the sinners?

Rahul - I dont know why I was surprised by the low number of interacts on that board but I was. But then, as Ana said, perfectly well-educated and rational people find it hard to accept that fathers can molest their children and that most cases of abuse are initiated by people well known to the family and the child. Perhaps they think CSA is a western import and our culture doesnt permit it.

Nearly 60 years after Independence, here we are still unable to interest anyone on the shortcomings of a Constitution drafted in another age by men educated in still another, with the potential to work well and in reality with huge fat loopholes that fail to protect those most in need of it. How come everyone that quotes the scripture [of three to four diff faiths sometimes] and waves a flag for cultural / moral superiority has nothing to say about these issues?

Thanks for the link. And they dont just think with their asses, they talk thru it too.

Here it is.
http://www.chowk.com/show_article.cgi?aid=00004806&channel=gulberg&start=0&end=9&chapter=1&page=1

Re: # 101
Thats a very goood point you bring up Amrita. An example of asinine stupidity if there ever was one.Using one`s ass for having sex is definitely better than thinking with it, in my opinion.
There is one more professed link between csa and homosexuality, by Pinki Virani. Most of her posiitions have been discredited now. I posted a lot of stuff on an article on csa, I will see if I can find it.

Rahul - thank you!

re: child sexual abuse. One of the things that the Article relating to unnatural sex [the one used to arrest or harrass homosexuals] is used for is child sexual abuse. India has no specific law addressing CSA because it doesnt view rape as anything other than straight sex between a man and a woman! So if the child or adult was forcibly penetrated by a foreign object or fingers, etc or was forcibly sodomized, Indian law doesnt see it as rape. And instead of addressing this serious lapse in the country`s laws, some people actually use that as a reason to keep the unnatural sex law! As in they refuse to get laws passed that will convict for rape in a few more cases and for CSA but would rather keep the unnatural sex law so that rape can be prosecuted as unnatural sex!! This in a country where there have been persistent reports of CSA and the rape of even little babies.

p.s. to # 98
I think those three expressions of homophobia are not independent of each other.Ego defensive function drives both the value expressive and the social expressive function.

Re: # 97
In this case, he is not talking about experiential but innate characterstics. I think it gels well with the ego denefensive homophobia mentioned in #98.

Here are defined three basis for sexual prejudice-value expressive,social expressive and ego defensive.
http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/rainbow/html/prej_func.html
[Emphasis mine]
Sexual Prejudice:
Motivations

A variety of motivations underlie sexual prejudice. One way to understand those motives is to ask how a particular heterosexual`s antigay attitudes benefit her or him psychologically.

This functional approach has been used to understand attitudes in many different domains. Its basic assumption is that people hold and express particular attitudes because they derive psychological benefit from doing so. For any individual, attitudes toward different objects can serve different functions. Moreover, different individuals can express attitudes toward an object that appear to be identical but actually serve different functions. A final assumption of this approach is that attitudes are dynamic and are affected by situational variables. Different situations make different psychological needs salient, which can affect the extent to which a particular attitude is functional or not in that situation.

Thus, a functional perspective assumes that heterosexuals have different motivations for their attitudes toward lesbians, gay men, and homosexuality. Four principal psychological functions have been identified that underlie those attitudes.

First, attitudes serving an experiential function assist heterosexuals in making sense of their previous interactions with gay people. They do this by helping the individual to fit those interactions into a larger world view, one that is organized primarily in terms of the individual`s own self interest. Some heterosexuals accept gay people in general on the basis of pleasant interaction experiences with a specific gay man or lesbian. Others hold negative attitudes toward the entire group primarily as a result of their unpleasant experiences with particular gay men or lesbians.

Sexual prejudice can only serve an experiential function when the heterosexual has had personal contact with gay men or lesbians. For those who have not had such contact, homosexuality and gay people are primarily symbols. Whereas attitudes toward people with whom one has direct experience function primarily to organize and make sense of those experiences, attitudes toward symbols serve a different kind of function. Such attitudes help people to increase their self-esteem by expressing important aspects of themselves – by declaring (to themselves and to others) what sort of people they are. Affirming who one is often is accomplished by distancing oneself from or even attacking people who represent the sort of person one is not (or does not want to be).

Three different attitude functions have been identified that serve these symbolic purposes.

* Attitudes serving a value-expressive function enable heterosexuals to affirm their belief in and adherence to important values that are closely related to their self concepts.

* When attitudes serve a social expressive function, expressing the attitude strengthens one`s sense of belonging to a particular group and helps an individual to gain acceptance, approval, or love from other people whom she or he considers important (e.g., peers, family, neighbors).

* Finally, attitudes serving an ego defensive function lower a person`s anxiety resulting from her or his unconscious psychological conflicts, such as those surrounding sexuality or gender.

It is important to recognize the nexus between individual attitudes and cultural heterosexism. A particular manifestation of sexual prejudice can serve one or more of these functions only when the individual`s psychological needs converge with the culture`s ideology about homosexuality. Antigay prejudice can be value-expressive only when an individual`s self-concept is closely tied to values that also have become socially defined as antithetical to homosexuality. It can be social expressive only insofar as an individual strongly needs to be accepted by members of a social group that rejects gay people or homosexuality. It can be defensive only when lesbians and gay men are culturally defined in a way that links them to an individual`s own psychological conflicts.

rahul: I wouldnt quote Freud if I were you. The fundamental premises of Freud have proved to be incorrect - and today his emphasis on experiences as opposed to the physical basis for mental problems is blamed for having blocked the development of effective treatments for mental problems for more than half a century.

#94 Excellent post.I am no specialist either,but I would like to elaborate on it. Sex and sexual abuse is a dirty word. Sexual abuse is an act where the victim himself herself is considered to be violated. It becomes a matter of shame for them. Since children are discouraged to talk about it, if and when they are abused, they try to shut that out of their memory. This manifests in strange ways, their rigid view of sex and sexual practices may be an offshoot of not wanting to think about sex .
There can also be another reason. Freud has said that in our psyches all of us are bisexual.
Homophobes may feel threatened by their own homosexual identity more than others.Out of that fear stems their hatred.

hamidm #94 I applied your theory to chowk, and came to the following conclusion:

1. You get this urge to wear a shalwar kameez when stepping out of the house, and so are afraid you might be an Abdul. So you make Abdul the target of your posts.

2. Echoboom gets this urge to put on a black wool coat and start saying, ``baaaa-baaa``, and so is afraid he might be a baa-baa-black sheep. So he makes baa-baa-black sheep the target of his posts.

3. Urstruly gets this urge to put a stone idol in his living room and start pouring milk on it, and so is afraid he might be a hindu. So he makes hindus the target of his posts.

4. Jay Thakeray gets this urge to raise the crescent and star flag on his front yard and start singing ``pak sur zameen``. So he makes muslims and pakistanis the target of his posts.

5. YLH gets this urge to grow a beard and start shooting shias. So, he makes maulvis the target of his posts.

6. I, on the other hand, get this urge to say stupid things. But, unlike the rest of you hypocrites, I actually say them.

Note to Serious People: The above is meant to be a joke. Please ask sattar2 to explain the meaning of this strange word (he has a dictionary that he refers to whenever he forgets the meaning).

just an observation .......

.......... generally speaking, most homophobes tend to be unsure of their own sexuality and i would venture to say that they have been the victims of child abuse ............ it is also true that most miogynists suffer from the same problem .......... of course, i am not an expert on these things, but people who are always talking up morality often have a few skeletons in their closet .......... remember jimmy swaggart the lousiana preacher who ranted and raved against all sorts of sinners while cavorting with cheap prostitutes in cheap motels ? ........ and what about mr morality himself, bill bennet, who was supporting a gambling habit with proceeds from the ``the book of virtues`` ?........... and there was jimmy bakker and newt gingrich and the reverend jesse jackson with his litter of stray kids and abraham with his concubine hagar ...........

Homosexuality is not a disease by any means...though nor is it genetically linked in any way (as of current evidence...even after the human genome project breakthrough of recent years). It may or may not be socially/environmentally learned behaviour..but from a Darwinian perspectives for those evolutionists out there, it cannot be a productive characteristic for a human society based ultimately on survival and reproduction. On the other hand..just maybe....its one of those quirks of nature to limit population in a world thats already clearly over populated...I know that in India with its 1 bill plus bursting at the bloody seems population we could do with more fags....Pakistan at the rate its breeding at..probably could do so too.hehehe...other than I tend to agree with those who say that socially its decent enough lifestyle for consenting adults if not flaunted out too much publically..l