From: nsn@ee.mu.OZ.AU (Nick Nicholas)
Subject: Re: objectification
Summary: rant
Organization: Electronic and Electrical Engineering - University of Melbourne 
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1992 08:37:55 GMT

iw@tosser.Rational.COM (Iseult White) writes:
>bv426@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Steven A. Kendrick) writes:
>>In article #11935,cjmchale@dsg.cs.tcd.ie (Ciaran McHale) writes:
>I guess I don't want to comment on whether I think gay men are more
>mysogynistic than straight, as I think y`all as a breed are pretty 
>terrible.  

[Rant on]

Ok.

Now it may be self-indulgent of me to say this statement kept me distressed
all day, it is true that me feeling guilt is not the appropriate response
anyway, it is true that I, as a male, don't have the first fucking clue
about what it is to be mistreated and dissed and a woman, but dammit, I'm
gonna have to get this off my chest already.

If we are terrible as a breed, we are terrible as individuals. If men are
scum, then Elf and Ciaran and Kay are scum. I'm certainly scum. And I will
not call myself better than the rest, I will not *dare* be a glorious
exception. I *will* stand condemned, with no parole. The ones that say
they're better aren't.

But there is no such thing as a breed of men or women. There is also no such 
thing as bis, gays or straights. There's just people --- nice people, nasty
people, people that find themselves in a position of societal advantage,
people that find themselves at disadvantage. I am part of no terrible breed,
or any other breed. I am a human that happens to be male, and I endeavour
to be just. I may not always succeed. Well, there is no onus on you to tell
me what I should do to help right things, there is no onus on you to worry
about my feelings, and there is no onus on you to get along with me as a
member of this breed.

But there's also no onus on me to feel guilty because of what others, whose
gender and social conditioning I happen to share, do to women. I will deal
with my own actions, and I am responsible for my own actions as those of
Nick S. Nicholas, Greek bisexual electrical engineering undergraduate from 
Melbourne Australia. I will do what I can to make things more just with
those I interact with. But I will not be held accountable for my "breed".
And I will not angst about the misdeeds of my "breed". I don't believe
in getting worked up about abstractions, particularly when people neglect
the concrete entities from which those abstractions are derived. I have
problems enough dealing with my very concrete self.

[Rant off]

OK, I know this has very little to do with what Iseult was saying, and I
apologise to her for indulging myself so. *sigh* It seems that everything
I read on soc.bi these days impinges on my self-definition, and thumbs its
nose at me. Since I have nothing intelligent to say (as the rant may well
have proved), I lurk and say nothing; I see myself as not having the moral
high ground on these issues. But I can only punish myself for so long; I
must stand for what I feel. I'm sorry I'm only adding to the distress in
this once-bouncy group, but I had to let off. If it makes me come off as
a clueless cryptopatriarchal clot, so be it.

Um... I think I really *should* go back to lurking now...

---				
Nick Nicholas: [s]h[r]ug-osexual.  Greek, short, greasy, romantic, and as
B1 f+ t- w s-? e- r-- dr+(+)	   bi as he wants to be. [ObMauveHeptagon]
nsn@munagin.ee.mu.oz.au (IRC: nicxjo).  Likes Cavafy, Mahler, and cashews.
Newsgroups: soc.bi