Where it concerns more feminine or less masculine gay men, I think a huge part of the problem is that society is pervasively misogynistic. It's trickled down from the heterosexual patriarchy into the gay community. We've adopted a lot of societal preconceptions and enforced them on ourselves, which only leads to more oppression... this time not by others, but by ourselves.

Fighting for acceptance doesn't stop once we've achieved equal civil rights. There are centuries worth of cultural preconceptions and conditioning that need to be addressed, and the first way to do that is to stand up for yourself by not allowing anyone (especially within the LGBT community) to tell you who you may or may not be. Equality is not just for the elite few who can blend into "mainstream" society, it's for every person.

---

Post your replies to this thread, guessing which starship is shown behind door #8 on the calendar on the first page of this thread. Remember: only one guess per day! We'll announce the correct answer by the end of the day and an in-game e-mail with your holiday gift will follow!

Day #7 answer: Bellerophon Class
Day #7 winner: KnightChucky - Email with gift attachment sent by in-game mail

Quote by Ereiid

So, this book had been recommended to me awhile back: The Velvet Rage



Now, full disclosure - the author is a clinical psychologist, but I don't want anyone to confuse his ideas with hard scientific fact. But even anecdote and example can be illuminating.

His basic gist is that gay men are so used to being belittled at an early age, as we grow older, we find ourselves often times overcompensating, seeking approval and validation through certain archetypal paradigms.

Take for example certain avenues in which gay men are often broadly reputed, even among ourselves and friendly allies, to excel at:

• living fabulously - we're supposed to have fantastic homes, stylish and comfortable
• living hotly - so this is the gym bunny archetype, but can be extended to the extra effort we put into clothes, beauty, hair, and everything else shallow

Now extrapolate this to everything - workplace, personal lives, our political lives. And the growing realization is that we're expected to somehow live these superhuman exceptional lives.

Which sounds like it's not a bad way to be, kind of an aspirational ideal, right?

So Downs goes on to describe the downside of all this living fabulously. Gay men experience statistically known higher rates of depressive disorders, drug abuse, and so on.

It should be said that the author specifies this cloud of phenomena and behaviors are specific for gay men; other folks in the LGBT umbrella have plenty of their own challenges that just don't map over. And he's not very forthcoming about Deepak Chopra-style means of coping with all these stressors in a healthy manner.

Agree with it, disagree with it - the point is to strike up a conversation about ourselves in a brutally honest fashion.

yeah, but it doesn't help us when within our own kind, we get slammed for not being as superhumanly perfect as we can, it's hard to do it all alone, especially when those that you attempt to trust and rely on, tend to abandon you with at best a snide or sarcastic remark, or sometimes simply stop talking to you when it gets tougher.


I might be a cynic, but I still believe things can be improved if people try, most of the time it seems like other gay people are apathetic ("it is how it is, just go with it.") or nihilistic ("there's no point in coming out, it only serves to alienate you and make you a target. " "Protesting oppression gets you shot" Well we are subhuman scum anyway, so, why does it matter?") beyond me.


it's a wonder to me how those people don't actually turn suicidal.

Pathfinder

Quote by Frozenlily

I remember my dealings with the Salvation Army when they came to My work and I was helping them every year with their shopping and their donations and it was always the same three old ladies that came in. They never seemed like they showed any form of negative karma my way. I'm surprised tho to see these links

Just like with a lot of churches, there are good people in them... then there's the leadership.

So, this book had been recommended to me awhile back: The Velvet Rage



Now, full disclosure - the author is a clinical psychologist, but I don't want anyone to confuse his ideas with hard scientific fact. But even anecdote and example can be illuminating.

His basic gist is that gay men are so used to being belittled at an early age, as we grow older, we find ourselves often times overcompensating, seeking approval and validation through certain archetypal paradigms.

Take for example certain avenues in which gay men are often broadly reputed, even among ourselves and friendly allies, to excel at:

• living fabulously - we're supposed to have fantastic homes, stylish and comfortable
• living hotly - so this is the gym bunny archetype, but can be extended to the extra effort we put into clothes, beauty, hair, and everything else shallow

Now extrapolate this to everything - workplace, personal lives, our political lives. And the growing realization is that we're expected to somehow live these superhuman exceptional lives.

Which sounds like it's not a bad way to be, kind of an aspirational ideal, right?

So Downs goes on to describe the downside of all this living fabulously. Gay men experience statistically known higher rates of depressive disorders, drug abuse, and so on.

It should be said that the author specifies this cloud of phenomena and behaviors are specific for gay men; other folks in the LGBT umbrella have plenty of their own challenges that just don't map over. And he's not very forthcoming about Deepak Chopra-style means of coping with all these stressors in a healthy manner.

Agree with it, disagree with it - the point is to strike up a conversation about ourselves in a brutally honest fashion.

Quote by pnuttbuttah

Quote by Maxwell1975

Thanks.
I play now my Jedi Knight character. Name's Maxwell-will

hmmmm "Maxwell-will does not exist." Are you on The Harbinger server? :(

I think if he's not online his character name doesn't show up. I searched several times for "Maxwell" as I figured your character name would have that in it and posted in the KOS channel but got no responses. We'll catch you at some point, though.

Quote by Maxwell1975

Thanks.
I play now my Jedi Knight character. Name's Maxwell-will

hmmmm "Maxwell-will does not exist." Are you on The Harbinger server? :(

Quote by Baothezar

I don't need no man.

I don't seek approval from anyone. Not even myself. especially myself, I set waayyy to high expectations.

And I sure as hell don't care what douche bags whom I never interact with think about me. I've ran into my fair share of that bull shit. You're not white, youre too short, youre Asian, youre blah blah blah. The only people I care about are the people close to me. If my car broke down in another state I can think of at least 5 people who would drop what they're doing and come pick me up. The bitches who act like they're better then everyone else can go fuck themselves.

riiiight!?


Heller n Good Mernting!

Quote by pnuttbuttah

Quote by Maxwell1975

Hey, is someone actually still using this channel? I try to get KoS guild invitation but no one seems to be there

If you post some of your character names, I'll try to switch over to the Republic side occasionally and keep an eye out for you, too.
:)

Thanks.
I play now my Jedi Knight character. Name's Maxwell-will

it's not all the members, it's never the entirety, and that's the problem, and the reason we need to point it out, because people don't know where it is rotten when they've only dealt with the nice portion.

Looks like Intrepid class to me.

You can't please all of the people all of the time, only some of the people some of the time.

It is human nature to be unique and an individual and then still critique others when they don't conform to an expected standard.

The difference is how you let that affect you, with regards to if it is directed towards you specifically or if it is directed towards others

Bellerophon class Long Range Science Vessel Refit?

Vesta class.

I think that, while we are still a community, we often don't realize the journey we take as individuals, which isn't as homogeneous as people might want to believe. I remember in my day and my surroundings, my version of "not that kind of gay" meant that I wasn't that guy that was fondling children, or that guy that accosted any good looking straight twink in a bar and paid him twenty bucks for a blowjob. Of course, this was in surroundings where you knew of people going to parks and beating up the gays, because they then would come to school or around the neighborhood and brag about it. It was only after I started maturing on the subject and taking it seriously as something that just was, that I knew the difference between a pedophile and a gay man, or the acts of desperation all humans are subject to at one point or another.

When I finally came out and started searching for my truth, I went through so many phases it was ridiculous. Bouncing from straight acting to flamboyant, to politically active to hedonistically slutting it up. I picked and chose alot, acquired and let go in so many forms. But I most often felt like an outsider among outsiders because I would see how the factions within our community shaded each other, and basically lived out the same dynamic that is prevalent when we talk of gay/straight relations. Though, in an most ethnic households like my own, acting straight or not also determined how hard you would have it. It meant the difference between walking unharmed or getting beat up and bullied. I think when some young gay boys watch all that and then are confronted with being gay in this environment, it screws with your mind.

In the black community there is something we like to call Uncle Tom syndrome which, int he context of racial relations, usually is applied to someone who 'whitens' themselves up in order to appease the ruling white class. It's a another topic entirely, but I do see strands of that when we deal with each other.

Acting straight or acting gay, people who are uncomfortable with themselves usually reach out and influence their surroundings to mask their own insecurities about life and their role in it, rearranging it to fit their narrow view of what their world should be, or what it shouldn't.

Even in our world, among our kind, we'll always have to deal with people who haven't experienced our lives as we have. Being gay doesn't stop certain individuals from being narrow minded pricks.

I'm always laughing when people call other people bottoms, for instance, to their face even. Like the old argument that you're not really gay if you are the poker instead of the pokee. Really? But then I realize that most of the people who use this terminology are bottoms. Tops naturally don't mind a bottom for some odd reason.

I prefer people acting naturally: I propose this could be thing. Naturally Acting Gays. Gays who can at times act one way or the other way without having an existential crisis and making the rest of the community suffer for it....cuz those bitches are tired.


Edit: lol N.A.G. I just noticed that.

---

Post your replies to this thread, guessing which starship is shown behind door #7 on the calendar on the first page of this thread. Remember: only one guess per day! We'll announce the correct answer by the end of the day and an in-game e-mail with your holiday gift will follow!

Day #6 answer: Defiant Class
Day #6 winner: DaxAussieBoy - Email with gift attachment will be sent by in-game mail

I remember my dealings with the Salvation Army when they came to My work and I was helping them every year with their shopping and their donations and it was always the same three old ladies that came in. They never seemed like they showed any form of negative karma my way. I'm surprised tho to see these links

This is something that bothered me greatly. Whenever I see a charity I am prone to dumping out whatever is rattling around in my pockets.

Now every time I go shopping I have to do that awkward pretending to be talking or oblivious thing. lol

But seriously, how sad it is when we have to look into every charity and investigate to make sure it actually goes to the people who need it.

Hey :) there is a few guys I know that have been putting hate on others that are not the "straightest gay" in my community and some of this hate is focused at me for my voice as well as the way I act. The others are More "feminine" than me and are bullied more in my area because one wears a purse and wears girls clothes. One has changed his name and started wearing things of the opposite sex and even goes to the girls washroom only when he has girls with him. The three of us are unique members of our gay global community for not being the "manly" type but for being us.

The people that make the notion to be narrow minded in their comments are just equally as bad as our straight brothers and sisters that don't approve of our life style. They are the ones that provoke negative looks and words our way and group us all under negative umbrellas because of these few guys that think we are too" girly", we don't like the same stuff as them, we arent as "masculine", or even "that guy is just too gay..." "I hope I'm not that gay" (those words I've heard from some members of PEI's community.

What matters is that we know we are comfortable in the way we are (some of us... I'm still learning to be with my voice) and that is what drives our gay pride. Every community, business, country or anything will have people that want to voice their opinions even if they will hurt their own sisters and brothers. what you need to do is be brave and be strong. You need to stand up for what you believe in and never give in to any hate. The gay rights movements across the world did not get to where they are today by having our own people tell certain people they aren't "right(?)" for the movement. They got this way by overcoming all boundaries in their way.

Just some late night thoughts on this. It may be a bunch of mumbo jumbo lol but I believe that everyone who looks up at the men and women who part of this community and anyone who feels like they are part of it, are part of it :) there is a place for everyone and that is why Diversity, Rainbows and Pride all resonate with the LGBT comunities.

Ps Haters are always going to hate and if you give in and show them it hurts or bothers you, me or anyone it just fuels their fires to keep doing. So always keep your chin up and rise above the haters from within and out :D