I didn't quite follow* but it seems like from what you described if you surveyed 100 gay men there could be a fair split between your POV and the person you were talking to. Correct me if I am wrong. I mean its great that someone gave you a different way to look at it but I am not sure one POV should be privileged over the other.



I bring this up because I had a recently had an incident recently when I was talking to someone recently and I used the term "Disabled Person" and the abled person I was talking to "corrected" me and said, "It's actually Person with Disabilities because its 'Disabled Person' defines a person by their disability". That irked me and I spent some time thinking about it whether that was just my pride at being corrected but I think its more than that.

For example, if a person corrected someone who said "Black" and said well its actually "African-American" or vice versus I would find that annoying because I don't think its settled and I have heard the arguments on both side. Some people don't like being called a color and some people take pride in the term "Black". However, there are always people who take it upon themselves and speak up for all black people.

Now look, If I said "Disabled Person" and a person with disabilities told me that they didn't like the term and preferred personally "Person with Disabilities" that would be one thing. If a non-disable person warned me that some people with disabilities don't like being referred to as "disabled person" that would be useful to know and glad someone told me. But for a able bodied person to correct me on language on a POV that isn't universally accepted as the right POV truly did irk me.

Anyway, you didn't ask for all that but you reminded me of that incident and I would say, it may not be a reason to beat yourself up over it.


*I think you were describing a straight person playing a gay character but was playing the character over the top in a stereotypical way and you friend "corrected" you to say some gay people would find the performance okay because some gay men do act that way.




>I made, what is now in hindsight, an incredibly idiotic
>sttatement about a gay man in a movie being portrayed as just
>a man who happened to be gay, as opposed to being a caricature
>of a gay man.
>
>I thought it was well-meaning, but a friend immediately called
>me on it.
>
>She- rather charitably- said that it was a hetero-normative
>statement, because what I may view as a caricature can and
>likely is a very realistic portrayal of some gay men.
>
>That made so much sense that I was pissed at myself for even
>thinking along those lines. I didn't even argue the point or
>try to defend myself. My mind sat in that stench of that for a
>minute though, because that't very likely not the only blind
>spot I have, and not just for that community.
>
>I'd say I'm well meaning, but still have some catching up to
>do. I could be alone in that, but my guess is that a lot of us
>still have serious blind spots on issues where we're the
>outsider. "Pause" is some shit that's common and culturally
>overt, and I think I'd probably have been more bullish in
>attacking it a few months ago. But I'm realizing that there's
>probably a lot of things that people do that they don't
>realize is some measure of aggression/ignorance.
>
>Some do, and don't care, and that's an issue. But for those of
>us who do care, some of this corrective energy be better
>directed inward.
>
>"Pause" is definitely some shit that needs to go though.


**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"