For numerous reasons, heterosexism even makes its way here, into our sex positive love bubble, and I've been seeing plenty of it lately, most of which isn't malicious, it's simply a matter of people not knowing better. Obviously, some of that is a matter of simple perspective. If others have not had anything but male-female relationships, than sex to them may seem to be solely intercourse, and they simply may not understand that physical and emotional intimacy extends far beyond plumbing.

I know many of us try and make gentle reminders when this happens here and elsewhere, but it's rarely easy, and I know that sometimes it can feel a little funny, like having to defend yourself for no reason.

How much of this do you experience, and what bothers you about it? How do you combat it in ways that are positive, here and elsewhere?

don't use the word "gay" to mean something is lame. just say it's lame. i know plently of gay people, and not a single one of them is a lame-O.

secondly, people need to stop "explaining themselves." by that, take the example if some guy says, "i really like to bake cookies ... but i'm not gay or anything." i know plenty of straight guys who cook wonderfully (my boyfriend being one of them). Cooking and sexual orientation are mutually exclusive of each other. Besides, who really cares if someone's gay anyway? yeah, homophobes, but that's a given.

if i think any others, i'll post them, but my soup's gonna be ruined if i don't tend to it right now.

My mother is a particularly bad example of this. She'll be talking to me about this lesbian couple who works at her school, and she'll say things like "Oh, Jane (not her real name) must be the man in the relationship becuase she wears pants a lot and Sally (also not her real name) wears dresses to school."

And I'll just say, gently, "you know, mom, there is no man in that relationship. They're both women." And I think she's starting to get it.

I think what my mom wants to do is translate this couple's relationship (working, parenting their adopted daughter, having a home) into the relationship structure that she's most familiar with. This doesn't make it excusable, but I understand why she's doing it, and that way I can say "yes, their relationship is similar to a lot of heterosexual relationships, but that doesn't mean that it's become one."

For me, I learned to get rid of some of my heterosexism by being with people who weren't heterosexual. So for me the only real solution to assuaging it, Miz S, is for people to be out and willing to challenge assumptions and answer questions. That seems like an awful lot of work, though, and it seems unfair to ask only some relationships to take it on.

One starfish at a time, eh?

Background info: Maureen dumped Mark for a woman, Joanne, a month ago. Mark's helping Maureen set up equipment for her performance; he's still not over her yet.
--

MARK
Tell me what it's like -

MAUREEN
What?

MARK
With a girl - tell me what it's like for a girl and a girl.

MAUREEN
No way!

MARK
Tell me - or I walk away.

MAUREEN
It's amazing!

MARK
Who's on top? Who wears the pants? Who leads when you dance? Give me one more chance, Maureen! This is just a phase like girls and horses! And you never even wore flannel shirts! You'll get over it!
...
MARK
Tell me what you'll do!

MAUREEN
When?

MARK
When you're bored! Tell me what you'll do when you tire of girls!

MAUREEN
I won't!

MARK
I'll tell you - you'll run back to me!
...
MARK
I know your kind! Always change your mind!

MAUREEN
Don't be so blind! Can't you see? All my life I've known who I was meant to be!

MARK
But you never even liked k.d. lang!

MAUREEN
You'll get over it!

MARK
This is just a fad that will fade! You'll get over it!
---

teehee. but, anyway - some of the more common stereotypes of lesbians, in a nifty little song. ;]

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~lemming, Scarleteen Advocate

Heterosexism is not stupidity, it is ignorance. Most gays have been exposed to straight culture, most likely have been raised in it.

Most straights, except those with gay parents, get no introduction into the dynamics of gay relationships.

I did not meet my first openly gay men until university in 1965. And these two men that I became friends with still had to be very discrete about whom they informed. At that time the penalty for being a gay man (although seldom enforced) was life imprisonment. Note that this was the penalty for being gay, not for engaging in homosexual acts. Canada did not decide that the government had no place in the bedrooms of the nation until 1967.

My knowledge of lesbian relationships was almost non-existant even though my father's eldest sister is lesbian and has always been accepted in the family along with her partner.

My point is that most young straights have no source of knowledge of gay relationships other than the fantasy relationships of male pronography.

If gays want straights to understand them, they do have to make some effort. We don't learn by osmosis. So when we ask dumb questions, we may not be trying to give offence, we often genuinely don't know.

I know that it is wrong to make fun of people, and I also know that you shouldnt let people's comments get to you, but that is very hard. When people make comments meant to be rude and demeaning it hurts. Whether you find homosexuality to be wrong or not it still hurts when someone says something and meant to hurt it hurts, period.

I already get enough crap from people that defending homosexual even though I am straight, it makes things a whole lot worse. I do still defend it and correct people on their ignorance, but it is very very hard.

I always had a hard time approaching girls, because I would always assume that they were straight. I guess I thought I was special, or something. I'm starting to change, now, but I think it had to do most with naivety... I couldn't believe anyone was having sex, or doing drugs... or that anyone was gay.

Over the course of several evenings of films, I noticed how the crowd stopped worrying about which bathroom they were headed for and just walked into whatever bathroom was closest. And you know, it was really liberating in some interesting, weird ways.

The graffiti in the "Urinals" bathroom (usually the men's room) was better, for one thing. But more interesting was watching how differently different kinds of biological males reacted to having biological females and people of obviously non-binary gender walk in on them while they were peeing at the urinals. Mostly they tried to shrug it off like they didn't care, but you could still catch glances of the occasional flinch or other terrified expression.

In the "All Stalls" bathroom, the bio-women were very welcoming of all the bio-boys, according to several of my bio-boy friends.

I think, on the whole, that experiment with desegregating the bathrooms was a very good one -- teaching a whole bunch of people, by example, that genitals are just genitals, and we all tend to use them for more or less the same things.

It makes me want to do it every time I go out, now. I have this secret urge to slap up gender-neutral signs on every single sex-segregated bathroom door I see...

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Hanne Blank
Co-Editor, Scarleteen

Brittany

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I'm so sexy it's almost evil

The Big Day Out (rock festival).

Basically the womens toilets were full of...women. Doing their makeup, and god knows what else - no offense, but some teenage girls do spend half their lives in the toilets!

The overflow went to the mens toilets. Guys are toilet-efficient. We pee, zip, then (hopefully) wash our hands. Our toilets were less crowded for that reason.

In this case, the girls took over the sinks for makeup. There was a big line past the long urinals to the toilets. Half the people in the lines for the toilets were women.

It didn't seem to bother most of the guys - the urinals were packed. It didn't bother the girls. They mostly seemed to avoid gawking.

Odd, really - I think the guys were more scared of inadvertantly looking down at each other, or of being looked at by another guy, than by a girl!

Brittany

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I'm so sexy it's almost evil

i'll see if i can get the fab boyfriend to post what their definition of heterosexism was; I don't remember it but it was really good and inclusive and articulate I think. more so than i am :-)

I'm both bisexual and transgendered and I see a lot of heterosexism coming from the gay community. There are plenty of gay folks who are heterosexist by dint of being homophobic... like who are gay but have trouble dealing with that fact, and have internalized homophobia... or who are gay and out and stuff, but think that all gay folks should act "normal" and that if you don't act as straight and normal as possible, it's your fault that gays get bashed....

but also, the "mainstream" gay media at least is often *very* heterosexist, in excluding or disrespecting bi and trans people. And that's a big part of heterosexism cause it often comes from that whole "you have to be normal and straight-acting" thing, and also because bashing or excluding *any*one in the queer community is totally heterosexist. But I see it all the time: the HRC and other groups taking "transgender" out of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act a few years ago cause they said that they didn't have time to do that kind of education of Congress and the act would never pass with us in it (it didn't pass anyway, by like one vote) ... and a local gay paper (the bay area reporter) reporting on a transman's death and calling him "she" the whole time and arguing with transgendered folks who wrote in that *they* couldn't know how he identified cause the police said he hadn't had surgery.... or like when i first came out, i questioned my sexuality for a really long time because i was into a lot of boys *and* girls and everything I read said that bisexuality was just something people came out as when they weren't ready to *really* come out yet, and i was like "well, if i was gonna come out as something I'd want to come out all the way, and i'm in love with my best friend so...."

my biggest pain in the *** with heterosexism is the way people never, ever, ever guess that someone might be bi. Like Jodie Foster or Queen Latifah or someone - people interviewing them or speculating about them in magazines are always all "are you gay? do you think so and so is gay? she was seen in a gay bar, she must be gay! he has a hunky guy friend, they must be gay!" And if they're married, or if they were married and have kids and stuff, it's always "this marriage must just be for show so that nobody knows they're gay!" Nobody ever suggests that they might be bisexual, might actually love their partner, might anything like that. And I've had a lot of experiences where I've said "maybe she's bisexual" or "I bet Ricky Martin is bisexual" and friends have turned around and been all "how do you know that? why would you say that? they're not out as anything! you shouldn't put that label on them!" and i'm like "you were just doing it with dolly parton!"

First off, if you do a bit of research, you'll find that pre-Christian cultures did not actually condone rape or what those cultures saw as bad or negative sexual practices any more than Christians came to do. In fact, Judaism, which was around for a good thousand years plus before the time of Yeshua ben Miriam (Jesus's name in Hebrew -- Jesus was himself a Jew, in case you didn't know), has always had pretty intense laws about what kinds of sexual activity and what kinds of sexual relationships are okay and are not okay. Jewish law holds that only heterosexuals may have legally and religiously sanctioned relationships (only a man and a woman can get married). Jewish law also condemns homosexuality. The Jews, historically, were nowhere near the anti-hedonists that the early ascetic Christians were... their concern about promoting heterosexuality stemmed from an entirely different source.

The same is actually true of other pre-Christian non-monotheistic cultures, who ALSO had pretty strict ideas about what was and wasn't okay in terms of sexuality and relationships. Many scholars of religion, religious history, anthropology, and archaeology have devoted their lives to finding out more details about the history of human sexuality and relationships. What they've discovered about the origins of heterosexism in cultures is generally this:

The most common type of relationship in any culture is generally heterosexuality. Heterosexual sex also creates babies. Therefore, cultures in general have both a "strength in numbers" argument and a procreative argument to say that heterosexuality is the way to go and the way to be. It results in babies, or, in other words, future members of the culture or group. And the majority is generally doing it anyway, so it's pretty easy for the majority to say "hey, do it our way, there are more of us, be like us."

Thus, when you look around the world, both now and in the historic record, you will find that nearly every culture has its sexual taboos, and that 99.9% of the time, those taboos are formulated with the idea that heterosexuality should be normative because it is both common and produces children. Homosexuality and bisexuality are usually considered taboo because they are uncommon and because same-sex sex does not result in pregnancy, a fact which, to any culture dependent on reproducing itself for survival, is deeply disturbing and threatening.

All this has nothing to do with Christianity. Heterosexism was around long before Christianity. Christianity doesn't deserve the credit, but it DOES, yes, share some of the blame for reinforcing the idea that heterosexuality is necessarily normal, and for promoting the idea that anything other than heterosexuality is necessarily sinful. The one big "advance" -- if you can call it that -- that Christianity brought to heterosexism is that Christianity made it a sin to be anything other than heterosexual, and threatened eternal punishment for it.

Jewish law, by contrast, does not punish, it merely says "this is not okay" and leaves it at that. Other cultures' taboos about non-heterosexuality work in much the same way. Socially and culturally it is usually made clear to people that not being heterosexual is not considered "normal" or "okay," and people in various cultures have often suffered quite a lot for being different in any number of ways (Homosexuality is only one of reasons people are persecuted. Having the wrong color hair or eyes, in some cultures, is quite enough.). But the whole idea of eternal damnation for not being heterosexual is a wholly Christian (and specifically Catholic, since it predates the Reformation) notion.

If you'd like to do some reading about sexuality and sexual taboo in pre-christian culture, Miz Scarlet and I would be happy to guide you to some good references.

Basically, what I'm saying here is that cultures all over the world, and throughout recorded history, have recognized heterosexuality as being normative and desirable. This is because heterosexuality is common and produces children, two desirable attributes for perpetuating a cultural group and keeping it socially stable.

Mind you, this does NOT mean that heterosexism is ethically or morally right, or even defensible. It just means that heterosexism, just like sexism, racism, ageism, xenophobia, and any other form of institutionalized prejudice that is based on a fear of difference, is COMMON.

I mean, the last time I read through the New Testament, which was last summer, I didn't notice anyplace where Jesus said "Boy, I just really can't stand those homosexuals. I think everyone should be heterosexual, period." It just isn't there.

And if Christianity means following the teachings of Jesus, and Jesus didn't say anything one way or the other about heterosexuality or homosexuality, I think we're compelled to realize that maybe, just MAYBE, someone or something who actually wasn't Jesus had a great big hand in putting the "homosexuality is bad, heterosexuality is the only right way to be" message into Christianity.

Who was that someone or something? Simple. It was the surrounding culture that Christianity grew up in. Christianity, historically, likes to make itself out as being some immense force that wiped the horrible messy undignified slate of pre-Christian history clean, but it just didn't happen that way. It took several hundred years for Christianity to become even remotely powerful politically or socially in anything approaching a large geographical area (honest... you can look it up in books). Pre-Christian attitudes, rituals, and even symbols survived just fine, and were incorporated into the new religion of Christianity as it became more and more popular.

For an example, look up the history of the Christmas trees and Yule logs. I guarantee you, people don't have Christmas trees and Yule logs because Jesus thought they were a snazzy festive holiday ornament: Jesus never ever celebrated Christmas, except maybe to sing "Happy Birthday To Me."

Or look up the history of St. Valentine's day: you might be surprised to find that a holiday named for a saint had decidedly pre-Christian roots, and was co-opted by Christianity so that a popular holiday could be retained and used to make Christianity more appealing to new converts, who could thus continue to celebrate a holiday they had always enjoyed.

On a related note, I'd like you to realize that not all Christians are heterosexists and that not all Christians are anti-homosexual and anti-bisexual. One does not follow from the other. There are, in fact, an awful lot of non-heterosexual Christians in this world who would be awfully offended if you told them they had to hate themselves and their lovers and friends in order to be real Christians.

There are even very faithful Catholics who are gay and lesbian, bisexual and otherwise not heterosexual. Some of them are even priests and nuns. It's always been that way. We even have diaries of lesbian nuns dating back to the Renaissance!

Homosexuality and bisexuality are nothing new. Heterosexism and homophobia are nothing new. Christianity didn't invent it, and it sure hasn't helped cure it much. Ethical Christians, and ethical people of many, many other religions and faiths, on the other hand, have always been willing to fight against injustice and discrimination, and to help those who suffer under it.

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Hanne Blank
Co-Editor, Scarleteen

Start a Revolution -- Stop Hating Your Body!

But in response to what mortalman said, I do have one comment to make. If you're going to quote scripture, maybe you should also look at the part that says "judge not, lest ye be judged". Around here we don't condem people for their choices. While we may not share those opinions or choices, it's not our place to make statements like someone is not going to heaven.

~KittenGoddess

These arguments can go on and on, and since this isn't a seminar on western civilization and culture (just for reference, my doctoral work and much of my professorial career has been in cultural history, so we could have one, but this isn't the place for it!), let me just say that no one book, no one author, and no one discipline can give you a truly authoritative version of history. It is *always* worth your time to look at different viewpoints and different scholarly approaches to a given subject.

When you do that, you discover that *who* writes history is usually just as important as the history they write. How historians write about people of another culture or another era is influenced heavily by their preconceptions of those people and/or that time. Authors *always* color what they write and what they say, because each of us can only see through one set of eyes.

If you'd like some recommendations of some books and scholars on the pre-Christian world who might be useful in giving you some other viewpoints on these subjects, I'll be happy to give you some. Just say the word.

In the meantime, however, I have to say that in general, going by the historical record of women listed in trade associations, professional guilds, and from other related public-life documents, women have ALWAYS worked. Upper-class women have not. One mistake that many historians have made is to assume that the history of the upper classes (which usually is the best-documented) is all that matters. Obviously, it isn't, since the vast majority of the actual *people* are not from the upper classes. But women who were not noblewomen have always worked to help support themselves and their families: farming, trading, sewing, as craftspersons, etc. As a matter of economic necessity, they have worked. Only the richest could afford to keep women idle, and in fact, having women *not* work has always been a status symbol: saying you can afford to have someone under your roof who doesn't pull their own weight is saying a lot in a pre-industrial economy.

And as for the rape issue -- honey, I hate to break it to you, but until the latter years of the 19th century, and even today in MUCH of the world, most sex that women have is not according to their own choice and desire. Marriage was socially enforced and often arranged throughout most of Western history, and the sexuality that went along with it was considered mandatory: a wife who was not producing children, or who refused sex, could be subject to having her husband annul the marriage and leave her without home, property, respectability, or recourse. Do you suppose it's any less of a rape if a woman is forced to have sex *after* she has been married than if it happened beforehand? Or that marital rape doesn't exist? It does. Forcing someone to have sex, period, is rape. Coercion wears many costumes. Historically, women around the world have usually gotten the short end of the stick when it comes to controlling their own sexuality. Christianity didn't change that one bit.

This is still true in parts of the non-Western world, and lest you think that arranged marriages, virginity tests, enforced heterosexuality, and other means of forcing women's sexuality don't still take place, read these boards for a while. We've had instances of all of these things come up right here (even the arranged marriage problem, yes). To say nothing of rape, sexual molestation, sexual harrassment, and abuse. And we're in the 21st century.

What I'm trying to say here is: one of the great lessons of history is plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose. Really. Human beings haven't changed all *that* much.

And the other thing I'm trying to say here is: consider the source. EVERYONE (even me!) who writes about history has their own slant, their own pair of goggles that they see through, culturally and personally. Assuming that any given observer is truly objective is an enormous mistake. (N.B.: There are an awful lot of folks who do *not* think Herodotus was at all accurate, and who have archaeological evidence and documentary evidence to support their claims. You might wanna read some of 'em, they're interesting!)

That said, I think it's very cool that you're interested in history... not enough people are! Read on, girl!

.........

next message:

Hey, mortalman -- can you point me to where it says "homosexuals are not welcome in the kingdom of heaven" in the Bible? I just checked my Concordance (KJV) and can't find it anywhere. It doesn't seem to be anywhere in the Hebrew or Greek versions I have of the Old Testament, either. I'm stumped. It just doesn't seem to be there. Can you clue me in?

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Hanne Blank
Co-Editor, Scarleteen

As a bisexual woman currently in a same gender relationship, I often notice how rampant heterosexism is... what is awesome for me to see is heterosexuals that are noticing the problem--and that's where the solution begins.

And, I completely understand that most people have the best of intentions... recently in MS. Magazine a most esteemed feminist publication, lesbian sexuality was all but completely left out of their annual sex issue. It wasn't done so on purpose, and they even have some lesbians on staff, it is just everyone's "auto-pilot" mindset.

Just bringing up and discussing the problem, as we have here, reminds people to stop and reconsider whether or not they are being heterosexist.

It's a great start.

Well, my point is, I talk to her a lot about sexual orientation, and one thing that I thought was strange was her opinion on dating. Most of my best friends are bisexual, and my mom says they are too young to know that theyre bisexual. I asked her if she thought it was ok to date people of the same sex, and she said "no, they are too young to decide that they want to be with someone of the same sex." Then I asked her if it was ok to date people of the opposite sex and she said "Yeah, that's different."

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"You only exist in what you do"-Federico Fellini

I agree with your statement that it's a bit natural to be skewed against something you've never come in contect with. I am a very accepting person (at least I see myself like that!) but when I was younger, I was downright homophobic, for the simple reason that I'd never come in contact with any relationships besides the (literally) straight and narrow variety. However, when I got a bit older, I made quite a number of gay and bi friends, and was able to let go of my fear (and realize that I was bi, myself, lol). It's definitely a learned behavior- heterosexism, that is. I think that if people in homosexual relationships were allowed to be more open, the problem would slowly vanish . . . AND if people finally realized that the Bible is not the final authority on all subjects.

btw, Ani DiFranco wrocks.

-Moth

<< Christians condemn homosexuality (and all christians necessarily do) >>

I'm not going to argue the bathroom thing (I'm pretty neutral about that), but I'd just like to say that, no, all Christians do not have to condemn homosexuality. Many believe the verses condemning it in the Bible are mis translations and misinterpretations, and many more do not take the Bible word for word. Just my two cents.

-Moth

Statements like these:

"Girls, when you find a man you like...."

"Hey guys, what do you like about breasts?"

And topics realtiong to sex before marriage, sex outside of marrriage, and those which assume that sexual interaction is limited to men and women ARE heterosexist.

Gaffer, to answer your last question, homophobia is about a fear (or a dislike because of fear) of homosexuality or bisexuality. Heterosexism is basically about making an assumption that all people are heterosexual, and about dismissing the fact that not all ppeople are (and that a great percentage of people are not).

So, please remember when you are herre at Scarleteen people that you really need to be aware of this, because our users are diverse, and we can address relationships of ALL sorts when we discuss sexual issues. As a lifelong bisexual I can tell you flat-out that cultural issues notwithstanding, a relationship is a relationship is a relationship. The gender of the person you are with, and if they are same or opposite gender really doesn't make a whit of difference in the grand scheme of things. We all pretty much deal with the same sorts of interpersonal issues and dynamics.

And it is highly important to me that we are ALL included and not dismissed here. I ask that you keep it in mind.

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Heather Corinna
Editor and Founder, Scarleteen