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karen
Hetairos (companion)
Posts: 451
Joined: Thu Aug 29, 2002 7:03 am

Post by karen »

That [is] probably because they want to say that gay people can also be military leaders, warriors, or anything else that traditionally is considered masculine.
Newsflash!

And guess what. They can!
sikander
Somatophylax
Posts: 309
Joined: Wed Aug 14, 2002 8:17 pm

Stereotypes

Post by sikander »

Greetings Efthasios,

"That probably because they want to say that gay people can also be military leaders, warriors, or anything else that traditionally is considered masculine. "

"Masculinity" has nothing to do with being a gay male. Masculinity (like femininity) is culturally defined, socially enforced, differing culture by culture. Add that to the fact that gay men come in as much variaty and diversity as heterosexual men, and it becomes impossible to define gay men by what they *do* as an occupation. There is as much diversity in the behaviours gay men adopt, as part of their personal expression of self, as there is among heterosexual men. Stereotypes of gay men as effeminate or incapable of leadership or military courage are drawn from a small segment of the gay population but do not define the whole. The same is true of any gender/orientation stereotype.

There have been, and remain, gay men in every field of human endeavour, including the military, the "warrior class", military leaders and everything else considered "masculine" in each culture of the world. The difference is not the occupation but in how each culture views gender roles, sexual behaviours and roles, sexuality in general and in how open about their sexuality people can be for their culture, time and place.

Behaviours that are acceptable in one culture, time or place can be frowned on in another; behaviours that *used* to be acceptable can become unacceptable and vice versa. Human society (and the laws/rules it imposes or assumes to be "correct" for human sexuality) is not static.

Regards,
Sikander
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