Boys Beware Video

In the current society that we live in, there are many things that help shape our perception of sexual identity. In the discussion with the class, there was a consensus that family, media, religion were the major influencers on how we develop our sexual identities and how we view other’s sexual identity. From childhood, most of us are shaped by the view of our parents and often follow the same principles and views at them. Though many people usually divert from this thought process, it still serves as a foundation for our future views and principles, whether we agree with our parents or not. Going through our individual groups discussions, many people in my group felt that a large part of their perception about the LGBT community came from the media and how the community was portrayed in the media. We discussed that in our childhoods we were often presented with gay characters that were often very flamboyant, feminine

Acts of homophobia are an everyday occurrence in American schools. Sometimes acts of homophobia are very overt such as bullying or committing violence against a person you know or perceive to be a homosexual, but more often acts of homophobia are more subvert, comments, looks and body language that is exhibited around people believed to be homosexual. There are also times when homophobia maybe unintentional, such as assuming that all couples at a dance are going to be heterosexual and consciously or unconsciously allowing there to be a double standard on how same sex and hetero

What I got most from both the readings and the video, women sexuality is used to shame them and a lot of misconceptions about sex. When I was listening to the pro-abstinence speakers, I thought they were slut shaming females for liking sex, while not doing the same for males. Moreover, I felt like they were trying to say a woman with a lot of partners, her vagina becomes loose and non-pleasurable. Thus, a boys should not want female with loose vagina. From the readings, I get better understanding my gays so hated in society. Society hate gays because they not playing their gender roles correctly. Gay males are seen as weakling the dominate sex. A gay man is not a man because he chooses not to dominate women for his desire. Lesbians seen as going against nature by proving that they do not need a man for anything. Therefore, gays and lesbians are abnormal and straight people are seen as normal.

“Sex was something mysterious which happened to married couples and Homosexuality was never mentioned; my mother told me my father did not believe it existed at all ‘until he joined the army’. As a child, I was warned about talking to ‘strange men’, without any real idea what this meant. I was left to find out for myself what it was all about.” Mike Newman, who was a child during the 1950s America recalls how homosexuality was perceived during the post-World War II era (F). This sexual oppression was not only in Newman’s household, but in almost everyone’s. While the civil rights movement began in the mid-1950s and ended late 1960s, the LGBT community started to come out of the closet slowly. The gay rights movement stemmed from the civil rights movement

Considering the dominant heterosexual culture that dominated the conservative south throughout Jennings’ childhood, tolerance for homosexuality was seemingly non-existent, as beliefs were fueled by deep-rooted religious beliefs. The concept of societal discrimination explains that homosexual prejudice originates from an illogical fear of sexual minorities. Such discrimination produces a sense of concern and segregation for those populations that are not treated as equals (Lum, 2011). With the southern Baptist church serving as the central institution of Jennings’ community, he felt hate toward the institution as early as grade school when he was targeted with the words, “faggot” and “queer.” Despite this constant battle for acceptance, Jennings received no help from his school’s administrative leaders. He writes, “I’d better not count on authorities to do the right thing because they tended to side with those who had power already” (Jennings, 2006, p. 61).

He starts his book off by explaining the school’s yearly play which has the topic of nerds becoming manly enough to steal back their girlfriends from the popular jock, but no mention of homosexuality relationships whatsoever. Even though it is assumed that the two male nerd actors could be gay for being in a play like that but not the actors that play the popular jocks. Since there is no mention of homosexuality relationships in a school theatrical production then I was not surprised to learn that the sexual health curriculum was the same exact way. Overall, the curriculum and the administrators who talk/teach students about it puts a large emphasis on abstinence, but when they do talk about safe sex it is no between a man and a man or a girl and a girl it's always between a man and a woman. I believe the reason for this is their religion, and simply the old conservative views that the administrators have been brought up in (sex is between a man and a woman) so they tend not to think that their students are (for the most part) open to the idea of homosexual relationships, and may even know someone or be someone who is evolved with someone of the same gender.

For many members of the LGBT community, especially homosexuals, they usually discover their sexuality at a very young age, just like one of the characters in “Survivors”. While many of them chose to hide it from family members and friends for various reasons, others unknowingly display stereotypical characteristics of a gay person. These characteristics could be anything from a young boy

Downing provides a great viewpoint on the meaning of homosexuality throughout this article. I never thought too much about homosexuality and how individuals in this group might feel in their position, but this article gave me an introductory understanding on the origin and how it came to be over the years. Homosexuality is still an unstable topic even in today’s society. Many people have varying views on the matter and conflicting opinions clash on a daily basis. I remember having many gay or lesbian friends in high school, but I never treated them any differently from anybody else. I think everyone has a right to choose the gender or person they are interested in, but this does not work out so easily in reality. Many people are afraid of coming out due to the

In 1996, Henry Adams, a psychologist at the University of Georgia, devised a way to see if gay bashing was related to suppressed homosexual urges. He recruited a group of men between the ages of 18 and 31, categorizing them as either homophobic or non-homophobic. They were then shown explicit erotic videos depicting straight, gay and lesbian sex, during which penile circumference was measured by a plethysmograph. As a result of the video depicting gay sex, eighty percent of the homophobic participants showed "moderate to definite tumescense" as compared to thirty percent of the non-homophobic subjects (Stryker 5). Professor Adams concluded that most homophobes "demonstrate significant arousal to homosexual erotic stimuli," suggesting that homophobia is a form of "latent homosexuality where persons are either unaware or deny their homosexual urges" (Adams 441; "Antigay" 1). The homosexual panic defense is based on the theory that homophobic men may actually have repressed homosexual urges. Homophobia is often indicative of self-loathing homosexual feelings; many homophobes subconsciously use anti-gay attitudes as a disguise for their own homosexuality. Dr. Patrick Suraci, the author of Male Sexual Armor, suggests that a gay basher wrestling with homosexual impulses of his own, "instead of being able to accept those homosexual feelings within himself, he wants to kill those feelings"

The homosexual community is one of the most misunderstood and degraded cultures in today’s society. Homosexuals are usually the brunt of much of the misunderstanding and, as a result, have most of the unban legends and denigrating jokes that are found in modern tradition centered on themselves. Two legends stand out above many others; the myth of “Gerbiling”, which describe a supposed cruel and exotic practice of gay men, and “The Gay Roommate”, in which a gay man sexually assaults his heterosexual roommate in a college dorm. Both of these legends exemplify the fact that, through misunderstanding or fearing a culture, you can create horrible monsters out of average men.

He uses a tone of disbelief, labelling them as “paranoid”, and that their idea that the Safe Schools Coalition program could “turn” children into being “lesbian, gay, or gender diverse” is ridiculous, stating that there is “no evidence that inclusive sex education turns people gay”. Jones additionally uses sarcasm, stating that “it is as if everyone has a latent homosexual or trans potential that is just waiting to be activated”, and that this idea is “ludicrous”, further appealing to logic and common sense. This positions Australian parents to recognise the Christian Right’s opinions as illegitimate, as the audience now could perceive the Christian Right, and others opposing the Safe Schools Coalition program, as lacking common sense and judgement. Likewise, the photograph accompanying the opinion piece supports Jones’ point of view, illustrating how sexually diverse people do exist. This is displayed with the three individuals in the foreground, likely sexually diverse, have facial expressions of happiness and joyfulness. This indicates to the viewers that sexual diversity is not something to be fearful of, contradicting the Christian Right’s view that sexual diversity is illegitimate, swaying them to support the sexually diverse, and oppose conservatives against the Safe Schools Coalition program. Jones, along

Not just a century ago, there was an act that was considered heresy; homosexuality, a different side of sexuality found in all recesses of history. Humans are not the only ones with evidence of homosexuality in their species, it has long been debated whether it was formed from being genetically born that way or nurtured. The long found history has been only puzzling as the two sides of the spectrum in views, and only being publicly accepted in the 1940s. In Natasha Tracy’s article “Why Are People Gay? Gay By Choice or Is Being Gay Genetic?” where she goes on to discuss the legitimacy of its authenticity in being a homosexual. From the views of being born or in fact the way humans are brought up determines their sexuality, criticizing in the end the matter of sexuality is a matter to the individual and should not be criticized in any way.

My PIP is a cross-generational comparison of media’s influence towards public perception of homosexuality throughout decades. Society has become more accepting in recent years and it’s expected to grow even more in the future. The rise in support for same-sex marriage over the past decade is among the largest changes in opinion on any policy issue. In my PIP, I’m going to be discussing media’s perception of lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgenders and asexuals in the past decades to how it is perceived now. Homosexuality is defined as a sexual desire or behaviour directed towards a person of his or her own sex. I’m going to be comparing my generation (Generation Z) to my parent’s generation (Generation X) to see how media has affected views towards homosexuals.

According to the documentary, from the 1890s to the 1930s, homosexuality has been portrayed as a source for ridicule and laughter. That period of time represented the archetype “the sissy;” however, the sissy did not pose a threat on the representation of homosexuality because the sissy were between

Upon entering this course, my understanding of human sexuality was decent; I was aware of certain aspects of sexuality such as being straight, gay, lesbian, queer, transgender, etc. Nevertheless, I did not realize how expansive sexuality is; it never occurred to me that sexual health, prostitution, marriage, rape, sex trafficking, divorce, families, etc., all fell under the umbrella of human sexuality. Books and essays such as Renee Hill’s Walk Together and David Shneer’s “Out of School” showcased the multiple facets of human sexuality and how terms like queer are not directly related to homosexuality. While sexuality and homosexuality are linked, frequently, people mistake them as being synonymous; before entering this class, I was searching for a definition of sexuality, and often in the thesaurus section of dictionary websites homosexuality and or sexual orientation was considered a synonym of sexuality. Formerly, I too would have agreed they were the same, however, after taking this course, I concluded that homosexuality is just one topic in the broad discussion of sexuality. My understanding of sexuality now is that it