I have a project for my Sociology class that's coming up soon. I'm supposed to make a bunch of possibly questions based on any topic in the syllabus.
I took the idea slightly more abstractly, and while the chapter I chose to work with was Deviance, the actual topic of the faux survey was The Awareness of Sexuality in India.
The reason for my choosing this topic are numerous. The other day, I was sitting with a friend and her friends, and one of the guys said, "Oh God, the gay guy is checking me out." Other people look at the same boy with a sense of confusion, a sense of disgust or a sense of shock. In reality, the boy has done nothing to do with any of them. He is merely more fashionable than most, slightly more flamboyant than most. He carries himself with grace that most girls and guys don't have, and walks with his head up.
What I didn't understand was, why should it be an issue if someone with a 'deviant' sexuality checks you out? I've had several lesbians check me out, some of whom have even bought me drinks.The reality is that they are actual human beings, and no, they will not rape you. They, like "normal" people, will fall in love, have sex with people who, like them, like a gender they "are not supposed to".
People tend to forget this. They understand that you have your own preferences, just like they do. Their "condition" is not contagious. You will not "go gay" if you hang out with a homosexual. Asexuals are not people who have necessarily been sexually abused in the past. Bisexuals are not sluts. Not all gay men are men who identify solely to the female sex.
Another thing that came up in my studies was that a lot of religions aren't very anti-homosexuality at all. Hinduism, for example, actually has sacred texts in which gods, demigods and rishis are shown in gender transcending roles. There have also been various examples of explicit same-sex liaisons between kings and queens. What makes this particularly amusing is that regardless of the presence of this in SACRED TEXTS, modern Hindu families are often against homosexuality and consider it a sin.
The entire phenomena in itself was interesting because Indian Society hasn't even managed to respect heterosexual relationships.
Also, while a lot of people are slowly learning about the Kinsey Scale, not many people in India have any idea what it is.
For those of you who don't really know what it is, I'll try and explain it to the best of my abilities here. The Kinsey Scale is a scale that measures sexuality, in short. Its a scale from 0-6. What Kinsey found in his survey was that very few people were completely heterosexual or homosexual.
This is the scale-
0 Exclusively heterosexual.
1 Predominantly heterosexual, only incidentally homosexual.
2 Predominantly heterosexual, but more than incidentally homosexual.
3 Equally heterosexual and homosexual.
4 Predominantly homosexual, but more than incidentally heterosexual.
5 Predominantly homosexual, only incidentally heterosexual.
6 Exclusively homosexual.
X Non-sexual.
F The test failed to match you to a Kinsey Type profile. Either you answered some questions wrong, or you are a very unusual person.
Some texts describe it differently, and often the term non-sexual is replaced by asexual, but regardless the idea is this- very few people are completely heterosexual or homosexual. A large amount of people are actually a 2 or a 5. By this I mean that, an individual may prefer the male gender, but he/she might have leanings towards the other gender.
A lot of college student I've spoken to have actually related to this. After all, most of us think that college is also a time for experimentation.
So in the end, the question is this- does the society you live in forbid you from admitting you are a 'deviant' individual?
The answer, usually, is yes. Predominantly, the only reason that people hide in the metaphorical closet is because people ostracize them. These 'deviant' sexualities are just like 'normal' heterosexuals, they too wish to be part of a group, to feel love.
Yet another issue I came across of that of bathrooms. You'd be surprised at how much bathrooms play a role in our lives. I actually came across a video on youtube, by York University, in which a professor describes her findings regarding this in her book about Bathrooms.
Its surprising that bathrooms play such a huge role in socialization. I wasn't even aware of it, but somehow, the separation of men and women in this area is actually an attempt to socialize you into keeping yourself withing the gender boundaries. If you are a man, you go to the mens bathroom. Similarly, if you are a woman, you go to a woman's bathroom.
Note how even here, there is a very strong heterosexual dynamic.
What would a transgender do? He or She is not accepted in either. [ Just a note here, a transgender is an individual who does not ascribe to the stereotypical gender his anatomy is socially related to. A person could be born a man, but then realizes that the way they feel is not connected to this gender, and may be living as a woman now.]
Similarly, men and women feel uncomfortable when a homosexual enters the bathroom with them. In the eyes of a heterosexual, a person with sexual inclination towards that individual's gender has entered an area that is considered private. Immediately, there are lnks drawn and yet again the individual is ostracized because they are different.
My question is this- why does this happen? Why should we feel uncomfortable if a woman likes us romantically? Why should we push away people who may just be wonderful individuals, just because their sexuality makes us uncomfortable?
Think about it. If you were a heterosexual in a world where homosexuals were the predominant sexuality, the 'non-deviant' sexuality, what would you do?
All your anti- LGBT rights sentiments are automatically useless, aren't they?
Think about it. Maybe you could make a difference. Because 'deviant' sexualities are not threatening in the least. They are not alien life forms trying to take over the world.
Frankly, we have bigger issues- famine, war, drought- and if people got over their own insecurities, maybe we could actually help other people rather than being uselessly caught up in this cycle of discomfort and hurt.
I took the idea slightly more abstractly, and while the chapter I chose to work with was Deviance, the actual topic of the faux survey was The Awareness of Sexuality in India.
The reason for my choosing this topic are numerous. The other day, I was sitting with a friend and her friends, and one of the guys said, "Oh God, the gay guy is checking me out." Other people look at the same boy with a sense of confusion, a sense of disgust or a sense of shock. In reality, the boy has done nothing to do with any of them. He is merely more fashionable than most, slightly more flamboyant than most. He carries himself with grace that most girls and guys don't have, and walks with his head up.
What I didn't understand was, why should it be an issue if someone with a 'deviant' sexuality checks you out? I've had several lesbians check me out, some of whom have even bought me drinks.The reality is that they are actual human beings, and no, they will not rape you. They, like "normal" people, will fall in love, have sex with people who, like them, like a gender they "are not supposed to".
People tend to forget this. They understand that you have your own preferences, just like they do. Their "condition" is not contagious. You will not "go gay" if you hang out with a homosexual. Asexuals are not people who have necessarily been sexually abused in the past. Bisexuals are not sluts. Not all gay men are men who identify solely to the female sex.
Another thing that came up in my studies was that a lot of religions aren't very anti-homosexuality at all. Hinduism, for example, actually has sacred texts in which gods, demigods and rishis are shown in gender transcending roles. There have also been various examples of explicit same-sex liaisons between kings and queens. What makes this particularly amusing is that regardless of the presence of this in SACRED TEXTS, modern Hindu families are often against homosexuality and consider it a sin.
The entire phenomena in itself was interesting because Indian Society hasn't even managed to respect heterosexual relationships.
Also, while a lot of people are slowly learning about the Kinsey Scale, not many people in India have any idea what it is.
For those of you who don't really know what it is, I'll try and explain it to the best of my abilities here. The Kinsey Scale is a scale that measures sexuality, in short. Its a scale from 0-6. What Kinsey found in his survey was that very few people were completely heterosexual or homosexual.
This is the scale-
0 Exclusively heterosexual.
1 Predominantly heterosexual, only incidentally homosexual.
2 Predominantly heterosexual, but more than incidentally homosexual.
3 Equally heterosexual and homosexual.
4 Predominantly homosexual, but more than incidentally heterosexual.
5 Predominantly homosexual, only incidentally heterosexual.
6 Exclusively homosexual.
X Non-sexual.
F The test failed to match you to a Kinsey Type profile. Either you answered some questions wrong, or you are a very unusual person.
Some texts describe it differently, and often the term non-sexual is replaced by asexual, but regardless the idea is this- very few people are completely heterosexual or homosexual. A large amount of people are actually a 2 or a 5. By this I mean that, an individual may prefer the male gender, but he/she might have leanings towards the other gender.
A lot of college student I've spoken to have actually related to this. After all, most of us think that college is also a time for experimentation.
So in the end, the question is this- does the society you live in forbid you from admitting you are a 'deviant' individual?
The answer, usually, is yes. Predominantly, the only reason that people hide in the metaphorical closet is because people ostracize them. These 'deviant' sexualities are just like 'normal' heterosexuals, they too wish to be part of a group, to feel love.
Yet another issue I came across of that of bathrooms. You'd be surprised at how much bathrooms play a role in our lives. I actually came across a video on youtube, by York University, in which a professor describes her findings regarding this in her book about Bathrooms.
Its surprising that bathrooms play such a huge role in socialization. I wasn't even aware of it, but somehow, the separation of men and women in this area is actually an attempt to socialize you into keeping yourself withing the gender boundaries. If you are a man, you go to the mens bathroom. Similarly, if you are a woman, you go to a woman's bathroom.
Note how even here, there is a very strong heterosexual dynamic.
What would a transgender do? He or She is not accepted in either. [ Just a note here, a transgender is an individual who does not ascribe to the stereotypical gender his anatomy is socially related to. A person could be born a man, but then realizes that the way they feel is not connected to this gender, and may be living as a woman now.]
Similarly, men and women feel uncomfortable when a homosexual enters the bathroom with them. In the eyes of a heterosexual, a person with sexual inclination towards that individual's gender has entered an area that is considered private. Immediately, there are lnks drawn and yet again the individual is ostracized because they are different.
My question is this- why does this happen? Why should we feel uncomfortable if a woman likes us romantically? Why should we push away people who may just be wonderful individuals, just because their sexuality makes us uncomfortable?
Think about it. If you were a heterosexual in a world where homosexuals were the predominant sexuality, the 'non-deviant' sexuality, what would you do?
All your anti- LGBT rights sentiments are automatically useless, aren't they?
Think about it. Maybe you could make a difference. Because 'deviant' sexualities are not threatening in the least. They are not alien life forms trying to take over the world.
Frankly, we have bigger issues- famine, war, drought- and if people got over their own insecurities, maybe we could actually help other people rather than being uselessly caught up in this cycle of discomfort and hurt.
