[an error occurred while processing this directive] [an error occurred while processing this directive]

New world, new words, new wisdoms

Observations from the Edge
Robert T. Nanninga
Buzz Publications
September 11, 2006

 

Language being fluid, new distinctions are required to adequately reflect social evolution. With reflection comes knowledge, and with knowledge, change. And I know am done being "gay."

As a distinction, gay is no longer a word that holds any validity. Never accurate, gay holds little meaning other than as a label. Queer is outdated on so many levels, as a term, it is antiquated beyond relevance, and used only by people needing serious attention.

Thankfully, the use of fag and faggot is viewed as hate speech, and no longer accepted in polite society. Use of the F words now denote ignorance on the part of the person using them, and those who let the use of them go unchallenged.

Why does there need a name for men who seek pleasure from other men, or women seeking same sex intimacy, anyway.

The healthy expression of sexuality should be encouraged, not arbitrarily criminalized. Social segregation based on sexual desire is the realm of the socially retarded. People are people, and people like to hump other people, what's the big deal right? It's our nature.

In common use, homosexuality is reduced to define the sexual orientation element of an individual's personality. Most relationships between men are platonic, involving no sex or physical intimacy. Most relationships between men and women are platonic and involve no physical intimacy.

Discrimination based on sexuality will continue as long as those with a vested interest in maintaining the subculture status of alternative social structures allow it.

To define myself as anything other than a human male is to limit what it means to be a human male. Of the adjectives I would choose to describe myself, none are gender specific, none are sexual, and gay is not one of them.

As an adjective, gay is culturally limiting, and should be abandoned for the divisive term it is.

According to most dictionaries, to be gay is to be lively, having much high-spirited energy and movement; carefree, having or showing a lack of concern or seriousness; merry, marked by high spirits or good humor, and cheerful, having or showing a good mood or disposition.

Modern usage of the word gay denotes homosexuality in general, and male homosexuals in particular. As we all know, to be homosexual in America is hardly care free, and men seeking same sex intimacy are no more cheerful, lively, or merry than males who seek sexual relations with females, "gay" is no longer relevant.

Straight is another word that has lost all meaning. What is straight about George W. Bush or Ann Coulter? Like homosexuals, heterosexuals come in all shapes and sizes, and from every culture, past and present. Sex is sex. Some people get it others don't.

Sexual and nonsexual cover everything. Monosexual, pansexual, bisexual, multisexual, and don't even get me started on transsexual, do we really need to create such distinctions? All the labels just get in the way of people relating to each other in a non-sexual way.

To define sexuality in a stagnant state is to limit ones relations. And to allow that distinction to define humanity is ridiculous.

Sex is a matter of biology. As mammals, sex is also a matter of reproduction. Most expressions of sexuality don't result in procreation, others do. Some nonsexual procedures will create a child through technological means. Are Petrie dishes straight?

The opposite of straight, sperm banks, in-vitro-fertilization, and artificial insemination are forms of bioengineering, and available to anyone who can afford them.

Science brings us new expressions of parenting, and the possibility of same sex parents. Further blurring sexual boundaries, same sex couples can breed in spite of biological limitations.

As sex is a biological expression, with reproduction as the goal, perhaps the significant factor in identifying sexuality should be the desire to procreate.

Therefore the only labels to need are breeder and non-breeder.

Consider me a non-breeder. I gave up carefree during the Reagan Administration.

 
[an error occurred while processing this directive]