Cheers, mate, if you're reading this.
For what it's worth, his view is like 99% identical to mine. Take it or leave it, my straight and my gay friends. But he sums it up so nicely - 4½ minutes of entertaining video commentary - that I feel it's better to link you to him from now on than to re-explain my stance anew each time. Three cheers, two thumbs up, and a roar of applause for this man for pointing out that a person's sexuality is only ONE OF MANY parts of who they are, and that it is a TRAVESTY to identify one's self so wholly by any one element. Insert the exact same thing for race, for religion, for all of it. This rant is spot on. If I could just cut out the word "lesbian," "gay," etc. and paste in stuff like "Christian," "Jewish," "black," "Native American," etc, good God would it be nice.
I'll randomly grab one of my real friends and give you a brief profile (click the title to see it):
Name: **************************. (We'll call him "Frank" for now.)
Age: 25 years old
Race: Caucasian
Born When: January ** 1984
Born Where: Indiana, USA
Mother: physician
Father: musician
Siblings: two younger brothers
Education: B.A. in ***********************
Job: **************** (related to information technology)
Residence type: apartment with one roommate (friend from college)
Residence location: Lafayette, Indiana
Political views: Ungnarian (made-up for privacy's sake)
Religious views: Kblyrian (ditto)
Hobbies: video games, television, philosophy & religion
Favorite TV shows: MacGyver, StarGate, 30 Rock
Favorite animes: Scrapped Princess, Black Lagoon
Favorite comics: Watchmen
Favorite books: The Black Company series
Favorite video games: Katamari Damacy, World of Warcraft
Favorite places to hangout: the bookstore, restaurants, our apartments
Marital status: single, looking
You get the picture. Now! My friend is more than the sum of his parts. Such is the gestalt nature of human existence. But even were he only equal to the sum of his parts, still! So many parts he has! As many as these I've listed, and then some! So consider, if you will, for just one second, what a waste of one's life it is to identify their personal identity so strongly linked to any one of these things! That is to say ... out of all the things I've told you, you may think my friend is a well-rounded person, but truth be told, I haven't told you what frequency he does things in. For example: does he play WoW 10 hours a day, 1 hour a day, or 1 hour a week? Nor have I told you anything of the degree to which he likes or hates the things I told you he likes or hates. For example, does he hate all comics and Watchmen is simply the least detestable of them all and therefore his favorite comci? or does he own every comic ever printed and Watchmen makes him orgasm? Is he zealously proud of his Hoosier heritage, or is he ashamed of it, or is he indifferent to it? Then there are the details I didn't even tell you about. Is he musically talented like his father? Is he pursuing a medical career like his mother? Is he gay, straight, or bi? On and on it goes.
So! The point is, it's the same thing for a lesbian gamer on XBox Live. Great that you're a lesbian. Great that you're not a lesbian. Great either way. We love you (or hate you) for who you are as a person, and who you are as a person is either (a) not at all or (b) only minimally defined by your sexuality. It isn't, or rather it shouldn't ever be, a major defining part of who you are, whereby "major" I mean that it's nauseatingly gotten to the point where all you ever blog about is your sexuality, your handle is "LesbeAnne", you never empathize with racial or religious or other plights but you're brought to tears when you hear about homophobic persecution of gays, et cetera et cetera! Not only this, but in addition, whether XBox Live is run by a bunch of homophobic bigots or not is up for you to decide -- BUT! You make that decision at the time of signing the digital contract, which you DID when you hit "Next" or "Yes, I agree" or whatever on the Terms of Service page for XBox Live's installation. If you're really that appalled by XBL's homophobia, then boycott XBL. If, on the other hand, in your heart of hearts you agree that a gamer profile is probably not the appropriate place to shamelessly plug your Shia Islamic faith or your belief that men evolved from monkeys or the fact that your grandparents on both sides were Nazi fugitives and that you're not a neo-Nazi but you still love your grandparents, etc., then wouldn't you agree that it's also not the place to plug your sexuality?
Look at me. I'm failing to do what I set out to do: leave it to the eloquent British bloke to do the talking for me. Quit reading this and watch his video if you haven't already. He does a much better job of explaining the frustration which many straight people and GLBT people have with the more vocal members of the GLBT community. Copy and fucking Paste for many of my Christian friends who hate televangelists, or for many of my black friends who are ashamed of the Black Panthers and my white friends who are ashamed of the KKK, etc. Extremism is never good. Everything in moderation, folks: that includes how you define your very personal being.
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7 comments:
Ah, the dreaded "but." Nothing scares me more than a sentence that begins: "I'm a big supporter of gay rights...BUT..."
So, this guy supports gay rights, he thinks they should be as free as straights to express themselves, and he acknowledges the intensely homophobic atmosphere of xbox live, so his solution is to not rock the boat and upset the status quo. Not exactly a progressive philosophy. Generally, I err on the side of more freedoms. If this girl wants to advertise her sexuality, let her. Otherwise, you shouldn't stop by just deleting username "lesbiangamer," you should also delete all those gamers yelling "Fag! Dyke!" and then, to be fair, names like "Iluvladies" and "Straightpimpin" should go too, because ...why?...because people are not defined by their sexuality, so we should stop these people who keep defining themselves by their sexuality!
I don't know, it all sounds a bit muddled. Visibility is an integral part of acceptance (not jut tolerance). People vote 2 to 1 for gay rights if they know or are related to a gay person. Staying in the closet and letting the bigots and misogynists keep their online oasis of homophobia may be safer for the individual, but it may be detrimental to our collective humanity in the long run.
You can delete your own comments on Blogger, so long as you're logged in.
Also, for once I agree with Jay.
"I err on the side of more freedoms."
Bullshit. With all due respect, bullshit. Because if you really erred on the side of more freedom, then you wouldn't force a private business into doing things your way 'or else.' It is precisely because I err on the side of more freedoms that I side with this guy -- because, as he points out, this isn't about self-expression being silenced by fascists. This is about a girl who violated the terms of service, knowingly, and is now making a big stink about it. She would have been banned had she put down that she was straight, too. XBox Live prohibits putting down your sexual orientation PERIOD. It's a universal ban on sexual identification, one which is not discriminatory at all. If an individual chooses to violate the rule in order to make a statement, okay, whatever, but it's appalling to call that "fighting for freedom of expression." What that really is is fighting for the power to twist others' wills into what you want them to be, which is just as evil/perverse as is the tragic oppression which so many religious groups, ethnic groups, and sexuality groups have had to endure for centuries.
Long story short, it's fascist to ban gay bars in a city, but it's equally fascist to ban "no gays allowed" bars. You can't have your cake and eat it too. You can't say "one is a civil liberty, the other isn't." You can't say bullcrap like "businesses are by their very nature public." Huh-what? No less so than is a privately-written, publically-published book! Like all the books ever written!! If we're going to defend a hateful person's "right" to pen his worldviews, then I don't see why we're not going to also defend his right to run his own private business as he damn well pleases.
This one of the biggest problems I have with liberals. Normally I consider myself a liberal, though I'm not really much of anything on the American political compass, so I think it's sort of funny, really. But I just can't tolerate the liberal POV that "we're fighting for freedom" or "equal rights" or "equal access" when what they're really fighting for is the right to take away people's ability to say the word "no." Easy enough example: 200 years ago, we lived in a world where most black Americans could not normally enter the same premises that most white Americans could. 50 years ago, that was finally coming to a close: but we still had rules like "No Dogs Allowed," "No Skateboarding, Rollerblading, or Bicycling," "No entry without proper attire," etc. These signs have become increasingly rare in the last few decades. People push and push and selfishly push for their "rights" when what they're really pushing for is their own selfish desire to be supported by the legal system over the store owner's. "He says I can't enter topless, but I want to be able to enter topless, so I'm going to enter topless, and if he tries to throw me out, I'm going to file a civil suit that says I'm being discriminated against and being denied free expression." You say, "Well no, that's not decent to walk into a store topless. It's different telling the world you're gay." Okay, we'll play it your way (or rather, the way I'm imagining people might want to play it), and we'll say that you're a Jewish store owner (mom & pop store) and in walk three white young men in their early 20s. They look like punks, but your eyes are immediately drawn to the swastikas on their shirts, swastika buzzcuts on their hair, swastika tattoos on their wrists, etc. You want to throw them out. You feel unsafe. They file a civil suit against you. They say they're Buddhist enthusiasts and they love Buddhism so much they got the character tattooed on their wrists, buzzcut in their hair, etc. "Where's your proof that we're Nazis, old man? This is discrimination!"
I don't think a provider of a commercial service needs to have what you, the consumer, deem to be a "valid" reason for denying them service. I think that's absurd. I think it may make the store owner a bigoted or prejudicial person, sure! I'm not defending his personality! But I am defending his right to conduct business as he goddamn pleases.
There's no escaping the facts:
- Microsoft says "don't tell people your sexuality"
- Girl deliberately pushes envelope, hoping it will lead to something so she can go all apeshit about it
- It does, and she does go apeshit
Call it a civilly disobedient protest all you want, guys, but I think that's a gross offense to Gandhi and MLK Jr. This isn't a peaceful protest in the name of justice, freedom, and civil liberties: this is a dick (or the female equivalent) who KNEW she was causing trouble and was doing it deliberately because she's an attention-seeker. She's no martyr: she's an embarrassment to genuine civil disobedience. True civil disobedience would come into play if she were denied access to public services. SOMETHING YOU SIGN A CONTRACT FOR IS *NOT* PUBLIC. It is, by legal definition, a private agreement between licensor and licensee. And in private relationships, all bets of "freedom of expression" are off, folks, unless you want to be the real fascists and start telling people who they can and cannot dislike.
"Users will be banned for a period of no less than 12 months if they are caught uploading sexually explicit imagery to our servers." What you are telling me is, "Ryan, I want to take this legal privilege away from webhosting services. People should be permitted to upload whatever imagery they want so long as it is isn't illegal."
And this may sound fine in theory, but it's not in practice. What if the reason the guy is telling you this is because he and his team have to manually go through the images on a regular basis to hunt for illegal content (b/c they can't just turn a blind eye and let people get away with uploading illegal stuff! They'll go to jail!), but because some people have what are (to the staff) disgusting sexual fetishes or image preferences or what not (e.g. pictures which depict mutilation, murder, what have you, really vomit-inducing stuff), and because they've got to look at this shit, they're pleading with you, Jay, to please let them tell the guy, "No, sir. No. If you want to upload obscene pictures, you'll need to do that somewhere else. We won't stand for it." Are you honestly going to tell this guy that he deserves to be told "no" over the client?
Please don't say "yes," man, 'cause that's just so wrong. D: I mean, seriously. ;_; You're telling me you want to live in a world where nobody is allowed to say "no" because it might hurt someone else's feelings / inhibit someone else's ability to fully express themselves? Jesus Christ, Jay, I hope that that world never comes to fruition. It is as important to be allowed to say "yes" as it is to be allowed to say "no." I don't want to live in a country where gay bars are not allowed, where gay men have to live in fear of being maimed, raped, or murdered for their sexual preferences, where gay men are society-wide denied access to certain jobs or facilities on the basis of their sexuality, etc. But there's the key: personal insult, injury, or global (society-wide) blacklisting. That's what I find offensive. I don't find it offensive if there are 9 bars in town which serve all sexualities, 2 which are strictly gay bars, and 1 which is strictly no gays allowed. I do find it offensive if every single bar is legally required to permit access to particular persons, particular products/goods, particular animals, etc. If a store clerk is allergic to dogs, the store should have the right to tell the blind customer with the seeing-eye dog, "It's nothing personal, but I'm allergic to dogs, so please leave." If a store clerk has what we consider to be an irrational fear or hatred of dogs, I think she STILL has the right to politely ask the blind customer with the seeing-eye dog to leave. It's her store, goddammit. It's just as prejudicial to her and cruel to her if we force her to be within 20 feet of an animal she intensely fears/hates as it would be cruel or prejudicial to a blind person to ask them to leave on the basis of having a dog with them.
Jay: the very essence of law is that it tells certain groups of people, "No, you may not do as you wish." Law is, by its nature, restrictive, not permissive. It takes away extreme parties' rights in order to secure moderate parties' sanity. It says, "No, we're not going to allow child rape. No, we're not going to allow willy-nilly homicide. No, we're not going to allow psychological torture."
My point is not to compare these acts with expressing one's age, race, gender, religion, politics, or sexuality. My point is, you're perverting the law when you try to make it permissive. Law is, by its nature, something which chips away marble from a giant rock in order to reveal the statue inside. It is not something which magically assembles particles of fine granite together in such a manner as to create Michelangelo's David. Law starts with "YOU CAN DO EVERYTHING!" (anarchy) and works backwards from there. It does not start with "YOU CAN DO NOTHING!" (a logically-impossible but nonetheless perceivable extreme of totalitarianism) and work its way up from there.
What's my personal philosophy? What's my moral compass pointing to? I'll tell you gentlemen: NOT YOUR WORLD, apparently. Because my ideal world would be:
- one in which only-gay bars exist alongside all-welcome bars alongside only-straight bars
- one in which only-black bookstores exist alongside all-welcome bookstores exist alongside only-Hispanic bookstores
Not because I or society would be doing the segregating. No, no! I am appalled by mandatory segregation. But what I am also appalled by is saying that people shouldn't have the right to pick and choose their clients. In a truly free market society, the businesses which serve all should be allowed to compete with the businesses that serve some. Let the free market iron out the bigots and the prudes and the jerks and the horrible gits. And if it doesn't? Then it doesn't: and we learn something new about our society. ;p
Did you go and join the John Birch Society without telling us?
I do have to admit that I don't know the facts of the case. I'm not sure they'd affect my argument, but they might. I suppose I'll do the research tomorrow. But you'd say that this is really true:
"There's no escaping the facts:
- Microsoft says "don't tell people your sexuality"
- Girl deliberately pushes envelope, hoping it will lead to something so she can go all apeshit about it
- It does, and she does go apeshit"
I mean, I'll be honest, I very rarely read a company's TOS. I barely even skim them. Has her ignorance or lack thereof been established? She's just revealing her supposed sexuality through a gamertag, right? Is she spamming people with the information? Is there evidence that suggests she "deliberately" pushed the envelope? And is going "apeshit" an accurate description of her response?
Can we demonize her specifically as an idiot or was the story picked up by media and spread? Is it all her doing or is there a popular outcry? It doesn't seem she has that much legal footing, so if she's trying for a lawsuit, that's a little silly --then again, if she doesn't like the policy, and she can find enough people who think similarly, then it's her prerogative to raise a stink, and if that stink rises to the highest offices of Microsoft and they don't like the smell, then they better consider a change, otherwise they may look insensitive and start losing customers through an anti-gay stigma.
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