Stories that start with you chatting to people at work about this and that and not a whole lot are always best avoided. Anecdotes suck, which is why this is a rant. It starts at work and, just as a wee digression, let us contemplate work – rather the social make-up of any given workplace. A disparate group of people brought together by the pursuit of money [oft times not very much money] and, sometimes, by career or ambition. Mostly, however, they are brought together by money. Money is, was, and always will be a major mistake of civilisation – we invest more in it than is inherent to it and it forces us to cross paths and routinely spend time with those we’d otherwise avoid. When the days are long and the work is dull and the room is filled with those who chase a little cash there will be conversation even when the individuals are not awfully keen on each other. It’s an inevitability that you talk to pass the time. Then you talk about this and you talk about that and you talk about not a whole lot and for some obscure reason someone mentions lesbians. Let me add that this is a room full of women. Apparently, it is the norm to be disgusted by lesbians. Three out of four people [okay women] were and the fourth had her sexuality questioned. Really, someone tell me – what is the deal? Do we not live or allege to live in a relatively tolerant society? Do we really care who fucks whom when, where, and how? Or do we not care so long as we don’t have to know the least thing about others.
Let me start that again.
What is with the continued hatred of homosexuality? It’s just sex, people, get the hell over it. Why are all lesbians nasty bitches and, seriously, isn’t there a name for thinking ‘lesbian = nasty and/or bitch’? Let me think on that. Hmmmmm. Could it be something about stereotyping? Or prejudice? Or both? Here’s a revelation [quick, someone write it down] lesbians are people, people are diverse, it is possible, and one might even say highly probable, that lesbians might be a diverse group of people. Really, is it erroneous to think that lesbians, as people, may be diverse? Here I add an evidently, by which I mean ‘the evidence suggests’, that for oh so many people sexuality is the defining fact. They can handle different religion, they can handle different race [actually, I lie, they all have prejudices and intolerances that amaze me], they can handle all manner of different. They just aren’t very keen on girls who like girls or even girls who defend the rights and personalities [en masse, one can’t know lesbians – that’s almost being one – ew ew ew…] of girls who like girls. Did I mention that it’s sex [mostly/partly/whateverly]? Is sexual preference really worth a prejudice? Have you recently been gang-raped by a group of rampaging lesbians? Have they held you up and demanded your money? Have they held you up? Have they hit on you? Have they not hit on you? Are they scary because they don’t need men the way you do? Are they scary because your sexuality isn’t as signed, sealed, and delivered as you like to think? Do they frighten you because they turn you on? Is it the sexual aspect that frightens you? Are you afraid of sexual/sensual pleasure without a man? Are you afraid that it’s better for them than it is for you? Is it perhaps your own reliance on men that frightens you? Do spinsterish old women, single women who choose to be single, and asexuals frighten you? Are women incomplete, for you, because they do not have men? [Actually, it’s terrifying how prevalent that last one is among women. Heaven forbid if you have plans that do not include a man. Life plans. You should plan your wedding and the names of your children and the suburb you’re going to live in and the schools your children are going to go to – what are you doing just sitting there? there are chores to be done, a man to be looked after, children to suckle – this is life (sounds like fucking drudgery to me, but hey, each to their own), dammit, this is the way of life, live it….and so on…]
Oh dear, I’ve lost the thread of my rant. It’s these women, I’m fed up with them. I’m fed up with the prejudice against anyone who is not a simple heterosexual. I’m fed up with the stupidity and banality of their thought processes. The belief, of themselves, that they’re not prejudiced because the way they talk is horribly insidious and so very common. Really, it’s okay to be gay – so long as you do it on Mars. If a member of their family were gay [and, funnily, members of their families are, in what is surely a statistical anomaly, never gay] they’d pretend they weren’t or behave like they were somehow abnormal or simply disown them. What’s with that? Do you stop caring about people just because of their sexuality? Must do, because no-one else in that room seemed to know anyone who was gay and none of them had so much as a queer second cousin, thrice removed. Friends, well, you can detach from that, blame their weird culture or whatever, friends show that you can be [little L] liberal from here to the fiery gates of hell but there’s no way in hell you’re crossing over. Admitting to family seems to be tantamount to confessing a taint in the blood.
I’m not even going it get into the rest of that conversation. I’m tired and hungry now and just can’t be fucked [also, this rant was way better on the bus on the way home]. Okay, I’ll share this snippet with you – two of us were talking about transgender [not sure how this came about either] and both of the others thought that transgender was the same as hermaphrodite. Okay, sure, whatever, um, no. ‘What causes that?’ one piped up. Hell honey, if I knew why transgender I’d have a fucking Nobel Prize in being a smartarse.