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Aug. 10th, 2005 10:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shinytoasterThe house is full of random Chinese things, some of them quite weird. It seems that the Chinese government has a hand in the itinerary of these package tours, and so things that the Chinese government has deemed it necessary for tourists to see include a primary school and a whole bunch of factories in addition to the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, the Terracotta Army and a trip to the observation deck of whichever skyscraper is Shanghai's tallest today. This means my Mum's souvenirs include a painting of a panda done by a nine year old. It's a beautiful picture, but I can't get over the feeling it should be hanging on a classroom wall somewhere. My Dad, meanwhile, bought revolutionary posters.
We also have lots of tea, several fans of differing design (and quality) and various puppets that I think my Mum is planning to take to school for her class next term.
I got one of those inky stamp things with my name carved on it, or a phonetic approximation of it, at any rate. I'm kind of curious to know what the ideograms actually say -![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
chinawolf, anyone?. Anyhow, it's very pretty and and it's in the shape of a little carved jade dog, on account of how I am a dog. I'll definitely be using it on my Christmas cards.
It also says Alex in Roman text, for people who can't read Chinese.
I saw the Sad To Be Gay documentary last night, and it was quite upsetting. This guy, David, his name was, had become disillusioned with the whole gay scene and some aspects of the lifestyle. So, he was lonely and he felt he really wanted a kid and a family, and so for some reason decided maybe he wasn't gay, despite very evidently being so, and elected to go on a course run by a group called Love In Action, a church sponsored 'ex-gay' operation working out of Memphis TN. Which was totally the wrong thing to do because, of course, being a secular type he found the whole God bothering part kinda freaky and dropped out after two weeks.
What grabbed me was that David was, in his own words, sick of the gay scene and using this as a means to try and force his sexuality back underground, when really all he needed to do was be taken gently aside and told, 'So? Don't. go. out. on. the. scene. Bitch, get over yourself.' What he didn't seem to realise is that being sick of certain aspects of the scene happens and this makes him pretty much an absolutely typical gay guy. It certainly could have spared him the mental breakdown and several extremely camp guys who were - so gay there are no words - telling him how much Jesus helped them drive out their inner fag. You kind of get how delusional the ex-queers are, right?
So you came away thinking that what David needed was actually not a happy-clappy Christian workshop but a spot of naked bedtop athletics. Or failing that a nice boyfriend.
Joking aside. I don't feel anybody can change their sexuality in those ways, so I don't understand why they try. They only end up hating themselves even more, and some of the people on this Love In Action course were so filled with self-loathing and shame (and had such fabulous dress sense) that it really tore me up inside. The really sad thing is I think I understand how many people don't have a choice and are forced into such situations, and that until the Christian Right loses its claws this stuff will continue happening. When you've been raised a devout right-wing Christian in a conservative area, isolated from people like you, beat up and living in fear as seems to typify the queer experience in many parts of the western world (from the Bush-voting US states to the more macho parts of Oz to rural Britain), I can completely understand how going to an ex-gay ministry might seem like a rational choice, but I just find it so upsetting how people do this to themselves. But if you can't bring yourself to accept your existence I guess, for some people, it's that or suicide. It's so upsetting.
And as for David, I feel it's so stupid to do it for the reasons he did because we can already have kids and families in a same sex relationship, and we'll have even clearer rights on this come November. These ex-gay movements are just so, so worthless and creepy and evil they make my skin crawl. If I were the praying type I'd pray they never make it to the UK.
We also have lots of tea, several fans of differing design (and quality) and various puppets that I think my Mum is planning to take to school for her class next term.
I got one of those inky stamp things with my name carved on it, or a phonetic approximation of it, at any rate. I'm kind of curious to know what the ideograms actually say -
chinawolf, anyone?. Anyhow, it's very pretty and and it's in the shape of a little carved jade dog, on account of how I am a dog. I'll definitely be using it on my Christmas cards.It also says Alex in Roman text, for people who can't read Chinese.
I saw the Sad To Be Gay documentary last night, and it was quite upsetting. This guy, David, his name was, had become disillusioned with the whole gay scene and some aspects of the lifestyle. So, he was lonely and he felt he really wanted a kid and a family, and so for some reason decided maybe he wasn't gay, despite very evidently being so, and elected to go on a course run by a group called Love In Action, a church sponsored 'ex-gay' operation working out of Memphis TN. Which was totally the wrong thing to do because, of course, being a secular type he found the whole God bothering part kinda freaky and dropped out after two weeks.
What grabbed me was that David was, in his own words, sick of the gay scene and using this as a means to try and force his sexuality back underground, when really all he needed to do was be taken gently aside and told, 'So? Don't. go. out. on. the. scene. Bitch, get over yourself.' What he didn't seem to realise is that being sick of certain aspects of the scene happens and this makes him pretty much an absolutely typical gay guy. It certainly could have spared him the mental breakdown and several extremely camp guys who were - so gay there are no words - telling him how much Jesus helped them drive out their inner fag. You kind of get how delusional the ex-queers are, right?
So you came away thinking that what David needed was actually not a happy-clappy Christian workshop but a spot of naked bedtop athletics. Or failing that a nice boyfriend.
Joking aside. I don't feel anybody can change their sexuality in those ways, so I don't understand why they try. They only end up hating themselves even more, and some of the people on this Love In Action course were so filled with self-loathing and shame (and had such fabulous dress sense) that it really tore me up inside. The really sad thing is I think I understand how many people don't have a choice and are forced into such situations, and that until the Christian Right loses its claws this stuff will continue happening. When you've been raised a devout right-wing Christian in a conservative area, isolated from people like you, beat up and living in fear as seems to typify the queer experience in many parts of the western world (from the Bush-voting US states to the more macho parts of Oz to rural Britain), I can completely understand how going to an ex-gay ministry might seem like a rational choice, but I just find it so upsetting how people do this to themselves. But if you can't bring yourself to accept your existence I guess, for some people, it's that or suicide. It's so upsetting.
And as for David, I feel it's so stupid to do it for the reasons he did because we can already have kids and families in a same sex relationship, and we'll have even clearer rights on this come November. These ex-gay movements are just so, so worthless and creepy and evil they make my skin crawl. If I were the praying type I'd pray they never make it to the UK.
