When people say heterosexuals are a minority now

Conte Remo said:

Welp, members of my family somehow started talking about Vin Diesal being gay, and one family member went on a mini-rant saying, "He might as well be, everyone else is! Either that or bisexual. We heterosexuals are in the minority now."



I wanted to bang my head into the desk repeatedly. Talk about a warped perspective! I don't see how anyone could seriously think like that, I just...*screams into a pillow*

Alright, sorry about this rant.

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Well, most of them have had their horizons rapidly expanded in the past few years, with homosexuality going from "hidden and/or mythological" to "it's real and some of the people you know are it too". This rapid expansion in how open people are being about themselves has some people wigging out about the perceived explosion in non-heterosexual population.

That doesn't excuse their attitude, but it goes some of the way towards explaining it.

Conte Remo said:

Welp, members of my family somehow started talking about Vin Diesal being gay, and one family member went on a mini-rant saying, "He might as well be, everyone else is! Either that or bisexual. We heterosexuals are in the minority now."



I wanted to bang my head into the desk repeatedly. Talk about a warped perspective! I don't see how anyone could seriously think like that, I just...*screams into a pillow*

Alright, sorry about this rant.

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I've got a family member who does this sort of thing sometimes too

It's a sickness or something, probably a fear-based reaction to feeling like the world he or she thinks existed really doesn't and never did. The only thing I've ever found (and it's hard when I'm hot under the collar) is to stay calm and ask question after question in the hopes that they'll eventually realize they're running in illogical circles. It doesn't happen terribly often, but now and again, you might plant a seed.

Or, if it's an option, you can simply try to avoid the person in question in as a method of sanity preservation.

Is Vin Diesel gay? I missed that one.

Anyway.

I agree. I want to slap people who complain that they're a minority now because some small group is advocating for equal rights and recognition.

They have no idea what it's really like to be a "minority."

Their point? Millionaires are a minority too...

Jett. said:

Their point? Millionaires are a minority too...

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I feel a John Hodgeman, Deranged Billionaire segment coming on...

Conte Remo said:

Welp, members of my family somehow started talking about Vin Diesal being gay, and one family member went on a mini-rant saying, "He might as well be, everyone else is! Either that or bisexual. We heterosexuals are in the minority now."



I wanted to bang my head into the desk repeatedly. Talk about a warped perspective! I don't see how anyone could seriously think like that, I just...*screams into a pillow*

Alright, sorry about this rant.

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The majority of the people I know, and some of these peeps are ultra conservative right winged christians I know gasp, are bisexual! I also live in a rather large university town here in central Iowa so I don't know if this makes a difference or not. Well actually not based on what I know of a couple of towns north of here, the French Quarter has NOTHING compared to what's going on two counties from where I live... and I'm talking Fly Over country here as in the bowels of no where!!!

Conte Remo said:

I have no idea if Vin Diesal is actually gay, but my brother claims he is.

And yes, they don't! They take their privileges for granted. I know people who claim that whites are a minority in the US now, and I pulled up the population numbers on the US Census Bureau to prove them wrong, but those people say that it doesn't count because they probably tweak the statistics. No matter what, they'll invent a way to support their claims...

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He gave an interview where he claimed to be gay, but I think it was supposed to be a joke.

I don't know why his being gay (or not) matters any more than all the other celebrities who have revealed themselves to be gay (or not) over the years. Some famous people are gay or bi, but far more are straight.

But Vin Diesel is not someone who ranks high on my radar in any case. Aside from the fact that he's an actor with a deep voice and a rather automotive sounding name, I don't know much about him.

And I agree that a lot of the kicking and screaming and cries of reverse "isms" are the whines of people who take their privileges for granted and really don't understand what true discrimination is.

I don't know as how it has anything to do with the original poster's relatives and what was going on in their heads at the time, but...

a) I do think heterosexuality would become something different, better, healthier if everyone who ended up identifying as that came to that by a process of self-inquiry and by considering all the options, instead of because it's "normal" and is the default option

b) Heterosexuality isn't as (pardon the expression) straightforward as lots of folks (regardless of orientation) tend to treat it. As culturally constructed, it is NOT merely the attraction of male-bodied folk towards female-bodied folk, or even male-bodied cisgendered folk towards female-bodied cisgendered folk. Instead, it's the tent-stake in the ground that anchors the definition of normative gender in the first place. That which IS perceived as "masculine" is defined AS "those characteristics and behaviors that, when manifested in a male-bodied person, make that person heterosexually eligible within the parameters of the heterosexual courting/dating/flirting/fucking script". Reciprocally, the perception of "feminine" depends on possession of "those characteristics and behaviors that, when manifested in a female-bodied person, make that person heterosexually eligible wihtin the paramters of the hetero courting/dating/flirting/fucking script".

In the absence of such a script, a specific constellation of personality and bevhavioral characteristics would not have become socially eroticized. Or vice versa. They interlock, I mean. Dunno which came before which but they fit together as parts of a whole.

If people just had the bodies that they had and reacted to other people (sexually and socially, eroticically and sensually and intellectually) without reference to a narrowly defined courting/dating/etc script, I don't think there would BE gender. There might still be mostly-binary categories of binary sex, but I don't think it would mean anywhere near as much to people as far as how they think of themselves and what sexual options they consider w/regards to other people.

Maybe a long time ago, before written records, people lived the way they felt and were true to themselves but some group wanting to control came along and came up with the hetero-normative standards and then came the one husband multiple wives thing because there wasn't always an even number of male/female or something. Or women were just considered property by the control group. Something happened anyway!

Personally speaking, as a straight person participating in this thread, I hate being part of a minority. I blame this forum for starting all the commotion.



Seriously, I can't believe that anyone with half a brain in their heads would actually believe there's some supersecret agenda going on. What, that the LGBT crowd wants equal rights? Heresy! Next thing you know they'll be, like, can we walk in the same store as all the straight people? (Yes, more sarcasm)

People are always afraid of what they don't understand, but when some straight person says that straight people are becoming a minority, I try and resist the urge to toss off a smart-ass comment. It doesn't always work, though.

J.S.F. said:

People are always afraid of what they don't understand, but when some straight person says that straight people are becoming a minority, I try and resist the urge to toss off a smart-ass comment. It doesn't always work, though.

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Toss away, please. Sarcasm is a great way to verbally kick someone in the cojones.

I can believe that full heterosexuals are a minority. I very much doubt anyone is 100% hetero Clearly the hardcore homophobes are more than a little gay. They do say that the best defence is a good offence...

My sister said more or less the same thing about everyone "wanting to be LGBT now because it's the cool thing" when I casually mentioned that I'm pan and that I am currently attracted to a woman. She informed me that I am not, I am in fact, straight. The weird thing is that my sister is a hardcore defender of LGBT rights... as long as they're not her sisters apparently... :S

I was like, "you spent most of your teen years pretending you were your own twin brother... You don't get to make me straight and cis..."

The way some people think boggles my mind...

My 18-year-old has a former friend whose younger sibling is gender fluid. The former friend will defend that sibling to the death, and at one point was talking about going to court for custody against their mother, who refuses to accept the sibling's gender identity.

But.... when my 18-year-old, who's been openly bisexual since age 11, came out as gender fluid last summer, this same former friend said, "You're just an attention whore. You aren't bi, you aren't gender fluid. That isn't even a thing. You're just confused and want everyone to pay attention to you."

Yes... the girl whose *sibling* is gender fluid and who supports that sibling, told my child that "gender fluid isn't even a thing."

Which is why she's my child's FORMER friend.

And "straight people are a minority, waahhhh" is equally as prejudiced as some of the bigots (i.e. my ex-husband's family) I've heard ranting about "whites are a minority" or "Christians are a minority" or whatever. We're all human beings. Why can't we just leave it at that?

(I also agree that it's pretty rare for someone to be 100% anything... there's a reason sexuality is often referred to as a spectrum, and not as single points.)

I guess for me it would depend on how it was said. I assume the OP's person was serious, which is really... sad. But I've heard people say similar things and they were simply tired of hearing about this one or that one coming out. It's not a matter of being afraid of becoming the minority but not really caring what someone's orientation may be, and getting tired of having news of people's private lives all over the place.

MacAllister said:

Careful, there, shadowwalker.

The simple act of coming out to family or friends can hardly be equated with "news of people's private lives all over the place" and it's pretty offensive to imply that it is.

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I'm not talking about private individuals coming out to family/friends - I'm talking about the headlines concerning this celebrity or that, and I thought that was pretty clear, since the OP started out with Vin Diesel.

Celebrities' lives get thrown all over the place, whether it's about their sexual orientation, whom they're dating, what they had for breakfast, how many pairs of shoes they own... It's all out there. That's because they're celebrities.

Personally, I don't consider a celebrity coming out as "throwing their private life in our faces"... if they said what they were doing with whom, I'd think that, but I would think the same regardless of whether they're gay, straight, bi, pan, whatever. Just saying "I'm gay" or "I'm bisexual" or "I'm transgender"? I think that's IMPORTANT. Because I know from my own kid's experience that even in the most supportive households, teens and young adults who are somewhere in the QUILTBAG can benefit immensely from realizing that a famous person they admire is like them in some way. And that that person's life isn't ending because of it.

Unimportant said:

I see an awful lot of headlines about which male celebrity Jennifer Aston is dating, or which woman Leonardo Di Caprio had dinner with, or what girl Prince Harry was texting....that's the equivalent of them 'coming out heterosexual'. Yet no one sees that as TMI, or 'throwing their het-ness in everyone's faces' or whatever.

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Actually, a lot of people see that as TMI and have the same "who the hell cares?" response. It has nothing to do with gay or straight - it has to do with "I don't care what their private lives are like.".

shadowwalker said:

Actually, a lot of people see that as TMI and have the same "who the hell cares?" response. It has nothing to do with gay or straight - it has to do with "I don't care what their private lives are like.".

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Then does that opinion matter? I mean, does it matter more than the aggravated opinion of someone who has once again been suckered into the medium of entertainment magazines once again?

shadowwalker said:

Actually, a lot of people see that as TMI and have the same "who the hell cares?" response. It has nothing to do with gay or straight - it has to do with "I don't care what their private lives are like.".

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I feel the same way, but just as you say, it has nothing to do with gay or straight, so it's irrelevant to the conversation, and bringing it up is just a derailment.

KimJo said:

Celebrities' lives get thrown all over the place, whether it's about their sexual orientation, whom they're dating, what they had for breakfast, how many pairs of shoes they own... It's all out there. That's because they're celebrities.

Personally, I don't consider a celebrity coming out as "throwing their private life in our faces"... if they said what they were doing with whom, I'd think that, but I would think the same regardless of whether they're gay, straight, bi, pan, whatever. Just saying "I'm gay" or "I'm bisexual" or "I'm transgender"? I think that's IMPORTANT. Because I know from my own kid's experience that even in the most supportive households, teens and young adults who are somewhere in the QUILTBAG can benefit immensely from realizing that a famous person they admire is like them in some way. And that that person's life isn't ending because of it.

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Agree with the bold, and especially the underlined. While I don't care what celebrities are doing in general, it's still important right now to show these people do exist, and, as cliche as it sounds, it gets better.