Comment on Anon thinks there is a bicurious double standard
blarghly@lemmy.world 4 days agoHonestly, while the exact way your ex handled the situation probably wasn’t ideal, this notion is really just an extension of the sexual puritanism that created homophobia in the first place. Imo, we should just accept that people’s sexual desires are what they are. If someone is turned off by bi guys, that’s fine - she doesn’t have to date them. Just like it is perfectly fine to be turned off by people with red hair, or people with annoying laughs, or people who are skinnier or fatter than whatever your personal preference is. Some people aren’t interested in shy people. Some people aren’t interested in dumb people. Some people aren’t interested in poor people. Does it suck when someone you like isn’t interested in you because of something you can’t control? Yes! But at the same time, people’s sexual preferences are also largely outside their control. So why demonize them for them?
GeriatricGambino@lemmy.world 4 days ago
Ugh… Thanks for whiteknighting my ex’s being biphobic with your moral relativism.
First of all I don’t know why you felt the need to inject sexual puritanism into the conversation, it’s not really a thing culturally in present day France, especially not in me or my exes mindset or social circles.
Second, don’t give me this your mileage may vary bullshit, some things are objectively bad. Having preferences is fine. Being phobic against a group of people is not. It’s fine to be more easily attracted to tall people, or short, or green eyed, or mixed raced or whatever physical characteristic, as long as it doesn’t turn into a fetish, and I won’t get into that whole other subject. But being repulsed or disliking an entire group of people because of a not morally wrong trait, is objectively wrong and textbook definition of being phobic. Being attracted more easily/often to white people with blue eyes and dimples rather than black people is fine, you like what you like. But being repulsed by all black people, or gingers, or Asians, for the sole reason they are black, or ginger, or Asian, is not. And no, nobody said you owe some random person a shag, just because they’re from a minority. But questioning why someone is repulsed by the entirety of group of people is legitimate. If there’s something universally morally wrong with a group, like fucking Nazis, it’s fine being repulsed. If there’s a rational reason to reject someone, like not wanting to get a in a relationship with a firefighter cause you don’t want a partner who may die in a fire one day, or your sexual orientation is not compatible, then it’s fine rejecting them but not disliking or being repulsed by them. If the only reason you dislike or are repulsed by a group of people is irrational, like they’re a different race or different sexual orientation, then it’s textbook bigotry/phobia, and that’s objectively wrong.
So to go back to the story with my ex; being a bisexual man is not a visual or physical trait. So if you’re a woman who likes having sex with men, and you were to reject or feel disgust for a man you otherwise are attracted to and enjoy having sex with, for the only reason that you can deal with the idea/image of him having sex with other men in the past, that’s textbook biphobia and homophobia, and that’s objectively wrong. If you feel so disturbed by this hypothetical, you feel the need to ask me, your partner at the time, a self declared straight man you are in a committed relationship with, if I hid sexual experiences with men from you, to assuage your irrational fears, you’re being biphobic and that’s just wrong. Again, if you’re a woman having sex with men, and don’t trust bisexual men because you think they will cheat with men, guess what, still biphobic, still wrong. Nobody’s demonizing anybody, moral relativism sucks, some things are in fact objectively wrong.
TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world 4 days ago
yeah, it’s super weird how desperate people are to rationalize this nonsense.
like… being turned off by someone’s race. it’s just your phobia/racism. it’s not a ‘preference’ like people like to claim. esp if your ‘turned off’ feelings are a product or assumption about that person’s sexuality/race being a crude stereotype or entrenched in outdated nonsense. neither of those things is a choice either.
it’s the idea that they are disgusted/turn off by. it’s not a part of sexuality at all, it’s that they associate negative traits with a certain sexuality. that’s messed up. and it’s also not really rejecting the person, it’s rejecting the category.
blarghly@lemmy.world 4 days ago
So gay men should suck it up and give women a chance?
Most of attraction/unattraction is not rational. It is emotional. It is a visceral feeling that doesn’t care about logic.
I, personally, don’t like mint chocolate. When I put it in my mouth, I feel a visceral feeling of disgust, and spit it out. There is no logic behind this - it is just what I like and don’t like.
I also provided examples of being turned off by people who are shy, dumb, or poor. Again, these are not logical reasonings, but visceral responses to an individual and their traits.
You’re demonizing all women who like straight guys but are turned off by bi guys by calling them biphobic.
Objectivity is when something is true with no observer present. Morality requires an observer to decree what is right and wrong. This is why we have many philosophical schools of ethics, but only one school of physics (except at the very edge of research).
GeriatricGambino@lemmy.world 4 days ago
…
“If there’s a rational reason to reject someone, like […]or your sexual orientation is not compatible, then it’s fine rejecting them but not disliking or being repulsed by them.”
Second paragraph, towards the end. So what else didn’t you bother to read / try to understand ?
Are the sexual orientations of gay men and women compatible ? Did I imply that anywhere ?
I, personally, don’t like mint chocolate. When I put it in my mouth, I feel a visceral feeling of disgust, and spit it out. There is no logic behind this - it is just what I like and don’t like.
We’re not talking about food, were talking about people. If they’re not harming anyone, they deserve to be treated with respect, as equals. Treating people with respect includes overcoming any prejudice you may have internalised growing up. Also having a visceral reaction, not an excuse. Visceral reactions can be questioned, and their causes deconstructed. It is possible to grow up as a person even as adult. Racism is visceral reaction, and it still wrong. At least in the reality of moral objectivism that I live in.
But I am curious, do some groups of people give you a “visceral feeling of disgust” like mint chocolate gives you ? What groups of people would those be ?
Yeah, and you can choose whomever you like as a partner, but repulsion for an entire group of people not doing any harm like poor people or shy people, is the realm of irrational hatred or fear, and that’s never ok. Or are you saying it’s ok or normal being viscerally repulsed by poor or shy people ?
Again visceral feeling are not an excuse, you’re have higher reasoning, and are supposed to at least try to understand and control your feelings if you want to treat other people fairly. Otherwise there’s no sense of accountability for your actions, you just go by pretending you’re a mere vessel to your emotions, and stay indifferent to how your behaviour affects other people.
If the only thing turning off a woman in a man is that he is bisexual then yeah, that’s what being prejudiced is. Same guy, same level of physical attractiveness, just as good a person, but straight : desirable. Exact same person but bisexual man : repulsive and less than a real man. That’s a biphobic woman, she doesn’t see bisexual men as worthy of the same level of respect as straight men, as equals to straight men.
But I get the sense that your ethics and mine don’t mix.
Look. I’m not a philosopher or a historian of Ideas, so my knowledge of moral relativism and moral objectivism or universalism, is at a highschool level, so I think what I’m saying and how I’m saying is perfectly understandable in every day language without resorting to philosophical semantics (and frankly I don’t even know why you brought up physics in a story about social issues).
In my stance of moral objectivism, I hold my ex accountable for her prejudice against bisexual and gay men, because it’s a stance where seeing bisexual men as inferior and repulsive is wrong regardless of your personal history, culture and upbringing, since being a bisexual man does no harm to anyone and if that bothers you you should get a life.
In your stance of what I see as moral relativism, it’s unfair to hold my ex accountable for her prejudice because the context of her “visceral feeling of disgust” is what is truly important, and she’s just unjustly misunderstood.
Those two stances are not compatible.
blarghly@lemmy.world 4 days ago
I mean, I’m referring to sexual repulsion. This is typically what people are referring to when they talk about having a preference against some person or other. It manifests as a visceral negative reaction, very similar to what one might feel if they think about eating something they find gross. A gay man would find the idea of sleeping with a woman repulsive. He can still treat women with respect. In the same way, a woman can find the idea of sleeping with a bi guy repulsive, and can still treat bi men with respect. This is an incompatibility in sexual orientation.
I could just as easily swap in what kind of shoes the guy wears, the guy’s political affiliation, the accent the guy has, the way he has chosen to style his hair, or literally anything else.
Certainly. I’m straight. The idea of sleeping with another man gives me a visceral feeling of disgust. This is fine. I am completely comfortable admitting this, because this is my sexual preference.
It is 100% okay to feel whatever feelings one feels. If the thought of sleeping with someone who is poor or shy is repulsive to you, then that is fine. You don’t have to sleep with them.
Because I don’t think you know what the word “objective” means.
The Aztecs thought it was right to sacrifice children to the gods by cutting their hearts out. We don’t. Moral relativism says that both of these points of view are equally valid in their respective cultures. I happen to think that this is more or less the correct point of view, since any kind of objective morality is literally impossible because all morality is is values, and values are pure subjectivity. But that’s an academic distinction.
My point fits squarely within good ol’ fashioned liberal western ethics, which you identified as “does no harm to anyone”.
Being sexually repulsed by bisexual men, and expressing this preference by simply not sleeping with them harms no one.
Amnesigenic@lemmy.ml 4 days ago
Goddamn you’re dumb