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Michael Roberts
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Posted: 10 September 2007 at 9:28pm | IP Logged | 1  

"I'm scared to death, but... I feel so calm!"

WHAT? That's like, "It hurts so much, but... I don't feel any pain!"
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John Harris
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Posted: 10 September 2007 at 9:30pm | IP Logged | 2  

The above pages seem to be less about being homophobic and more about being (justifiably) scared of rape. Maybe he just watched Deliverance. On a lighter note ... if this issue was written by Stan Lee what do you suppose the title would be?

Edited by John Harris on 10 September 2007 at 9:31pm
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Jason Czeskleba
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Posted: 10 September 2007 at 9:43pm | IP Logged | 3  

 John Harris wrote:
The above pages seem to be less about being homophobic and more about being (justifiably) scared of rape.

Well, again, the perceived homophobia is in the extremely stereotypical portrayals coupled with the fact that no other gay men, positive or negative, were appearing in Marvel Comics at the time. 

Wow, I'd forgotten just how stereotypical those characters were, too.  I haven't read that issue in 27 years.

Deep down, Banner is more afraid of turning into the Hulk than he is of being raped?  That is indeed convoluted plotting.


Edited by Jason Czeskleba on 10 September 2007 at 9:44pm
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Noah Smith
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Posted: 10 September 2007 at 11:22pm | IP Logged | 4  

I write a lot of plays for children, all adaptations of fairy tales and children's books.  I always enjoy the romantic aspects of these stories and I have sometimes added romances to stories that didn't have them originally (I do have to make the stories a little longer to fill an hour on stage).  I've added romance subplots to Jack and the Beanstalk, The Emperor's New Clothes, and a few others.  And plenty of the other ones had romances already (Rapunzel, Sleeping Beauty, etc).

Of course, I realized a year or two ago, that all these romances have been heterosexual.  Now, while there's nothing wrong with that, I realize that I'm leaving out a big chunk of my audience, to say nothing of the numerous gay actors I've cast in straight roles, tacitly forcing them to endorse the perception that only hetero relationships are "normal."

Why can't I have a same-sex relationship in one of these plays?  It wouldn't be  any more aggressively sexual than what I usually write, which never went beyond close-mouthed kissing onstage.

Well, I think it's because people, even generally tolerant people, have a perception of gay sex as being, somehow ... I don't even want to say dirtier, because that's not quite it ... but sexier.  Like, a straight couple has all kinds of "stuff" in their lives, sex being only one.  But a gay couple must be all about the sex.

I don't know, maybe I'm wrong.  Maybe parents, even tolerant ones, wouldn't want to see nonsexual homosexuality in a children's play because they would have to answer questions that would make them uncomfortable, while hetero stuff is so prevalent in culture that mass media takes care of it for them.  (Though it seems to me the Phoebe Buffay answer -- "Sometimes men love women, and sometimes men love men.  Then there are bisexuals, but some think they're just kidding themselves" -- would do.  But it's really easy to be a parent when  you don't have kids.)

I have snuck in characters who I know are gay into some of the plays.  But playing "undercover gay" isn't striking any blows.
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Simon Bucher-Jones
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Posted: 10 September 2007 at 11:36pm | IP Logged | 5  

As a parent(s) of two (female) children, we've always used the 'some women love men, some women' line, but while not thinking it in appropriate to have depictions of homosexual relationships in children's fiction, I think we might get a little disgruntled if the depiction was suddenly introduced into a play based on a fairy tale (just as we'd be annoyed/surprised if the fairy tale suddenly introduced agarian economics, world poverty, or detailed politics except by metaphor).

Simon BJ

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Michael Roberts
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Posted: 10 September 2007 at 11:45pm | IP Logged | 6  

I think we might get a little disgruntled if the depiction was suddenly
introduced into a play based on a fairy tale (just as we'd be annoyed/
surprised if the fairy tale suddenly introduced agarian economics, world
poverty, or detailed politics except by metaphor).

---

Given the original versions of some of Grimm's and Perrault's fairy tales, I
think these topics would be rather innocuous in comparison.
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Neil Lindholm
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Posted: 11 September 2007 at 12:11am | IP Logged | 7  

Noah, one percent, remember? :)
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Noah Smith
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Posted: 11 September 2007 at 12:28am | IP Logged | 8  

Well, I'm sure it's at least ten percent, Neil, and since my plays all premiere about five miles from Northampton, MA, which a tabloid once called "The Crazy Lesbian Town Where Men Aren't Wanted," it's probably much higher in my audience.

Anyway, even if I wrote nothing but gay characters in every children's play I wrote for the rest of my life, I wouldn't ever bring the grand total of gay characters in all of children's theatre anywhere near one percent.

By the way, I'm not talking about having Cinderella wind up married to Princess Charming. Just some new, or previously unromantically paired character having a same sex romance as whimsical as the hetero ones I usually write.
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Neil Lindholm
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Posted: 11 September 2007 at 1:05am | IP Logged | 9  

I guess you missed my previous posts Noah, about the value of 10%. It
probably is much lower than that, around 3-5% at most.

Unless someone can come up with a study that contradicts the Stats Canada
study, I am gonna have to go with the smaller number.
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John Byrne
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Posted: 11 September 2007 at 4:28am | IP Logged | 10  

Unless someone can come up with a study that contradicts the Stats Canada study, I am gonna have to go with the smaller number.

••

Kinsey contradicts Stats Canada -- you even mention this in you initial post. You then dismiss Kinsey, apparently because his study doesn't fit your needs.

I call bullshit.

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Andrew Kneath
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Posted: 11 September 2007 at 5:17am | IP Logged | 11  

Out of statistical interest (and including ourselves) how many adult blood relations who we know are gay can each of us count?

I can count one. (a cousin)

 

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Neil Lindholm
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Posted: 11 September 2007 at 5:45am | IP Logged | 12  

The Kinsey report was written in 1948 and was the first (that I know of) to get a figure of 10% of the population. It has been 60 years since this report has come out. Meanwhile, other studies have come out that dispute Kinsey's numbers.

Adult Sexual Behaviour in 1989: Number of Partners, Frequency of Intercourse and Risk of AIDS
-Concludes that "About two percent of sexually active adults reported being exclusively homosexual or bisexual during the year preceding the survey, and 5-6 percent have been exclusively homosexual or bisexual since age 18."

The Social Organization of Sexuality by the University of Chicago
-Five percent of men report having had a sexual encounter with another man as an adult, while 2.8 percent say they are homosexual or bisexual. Four percent of women report having had a sexual encounter with another woman as an adult, while 1.5 percent say they are homosexual or bisexual.

Sexual behaviour. French venture where US fears to tread.
Science 3 July 1992: 25
-4.1% of men and 2.6% of women said they'd had homosexual intercourse at least once in their lives. Only 1.1% of men and 0.3% of women said they'd had homosexual intercourse in the past 12 months

The Sexual Behavior of Men in the United States
John O. G. Billy, Koray Tanfer, William R. Grady, Daniel H. Klepinger
Family Planning Perspectives, Vol. 25, No. 2 (Mar. - Apr., 1993), pp. 52-60

-Only 2% of sexually active men aged 20-39 have had any same-gender sexual activity during the last 10 years, and only 1% reported being exclusively homosexual during this interval.

People believe what they want to believe. If people want to believe a 60 year old study over all of the modern studies, fine. However,

The Homosexual Numbers," Newsweek, March 22, 1993, p. 37
-Tom Stoddard, former member of the Lambda Legal Defense Fund, "We used that figure [10%] when most gay people were entirely hidden to try to create an impression of our numerousness"

Finally, with the call of bullshit, I point you to the site Mormanity Archives, which, although has a bias against homosexuality, gives a nice breakdown of the problems with Kinsey report, especially his use of prison inmates as test subjects and his dependence on volunteers and the inherent problem with that method of gathering data.

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