From: amz@iguana.cis.ohio-state.edu (Arnold M Zwicky)
Subject: why do people post?
Followup-To: soc.motss
Summary: looking for applause in all the wrong places
Organization: earnestly practicing faggots
Date: Sat, 29 Aug 1992 15:32:17 GMT

once again, guys - gay men, by their own account - appear on soc.motss
and say
      (1) i dislike nellies/queens/fem-gays.
people respond to it in a variety of ways: with invective, with
ridicule, with stories of nelly courage on behalf of us all, with
celebrations of the camp sensibility, with the suggestion that this is
just a phase the writers are going through, even with thoughtful
analysis of the regrettable attitudes (evoking homophobia and misogyny
of at least a low-grade variety) that probably lie behind the writers'
dislike, but mostly with studied silence.

all of these responses make sense.  there are many appropriate
rhetorical strategies, especially when you're confronted with an idea
that has so often been expressed by gay men that it could be taken as
a major theme in the coarticulation of male and gay identities.  in
any case, soc.motss is not some kind of high-school debating club,
where there are exactly two "sides" on each of a set of "issues", and
you take turns presenting arguments, and the goal is to make more
points with your audience for your side.  (as many have pointed out,
this is a view of discourse as ritualized war, and it seems loony
to me to have this as your only schema for discourse.)

the question is: why do people bother to say (1) in the first place?
why are they telling us these tattered old things?

some might actually think they're just - always beware of assertions
with "just" in them - telling us about their own lives and attitudes.
well, i tell you all a lot about my life and my attitudes, all those
stories about my experiences and descriptions of my tastes and
fantasties.  and i like reading similarly detailed stories and
descriptions from other people; it's a way of getting some sense of
what other people's lives and attitudes are like, and so of learning
more about yourself, sometimes by finding resonances in what other
people say, sometimes by being stunned by how different things are for
other people.  but the bare bones of (1) are not news, and they
don't evoke the richness of other lives.

some writers expand on (1).  they tell us, for instance, that
      (2)  the guys in (1) are "bad gays", bad because they hurt
             all the other, "good", gays.
the ways in which the guys in (1) putatively hurt the others are
supposed to be *justifications* for the writers' dislike.  the
writers are saying that there are reasons for their dislike.
again, there are many responses to (2), just about all of which 
have been aired here, several times.  they all amount to saying
that the writers of (2) are pointing their fingers at the wrong
places.

or they tell us that
      (3)  the guys in (1), and maybe some "butch" types too,
             are acting inauthentically, putting on an act.
this, too, is supposed to be a justification for (1); the writers
are saying that they dislike people who don't act true to their
natures, or something like that, and that all the "bad" gays
are such people.  again, there are plenty of responses.  i would
consider the root response to be the observation that the idea
of "authenticity" or "true nature" or "real personality" that's
being appealed to here is incoherent - but that's a rather
scholarly response, and a loud shriek of "you can't take the
fag out of *me*, bitch!" is also entirely appropriate.

but (1)-(3) are all about the writers' opinions and beliefs.
the responses are that the writers have nasty opinions (at the
least, rude; at the worse, threatening to the lives of all us
"bad gays") and believe in falsehoods.

why does it not stop here?  why do the guys who post things like
(1) persist...and persist...and persist?

...because they're not just describing their feelings.  they're
prescribing the way they think *everyone* should act.  in their
opinion, everyone should share in their rigid, hateful attitudes.
it's not just that they have these opinions; they think they're
*right*.  and they're playing to the soc.motss audience, looking for
applause, affirmation, converts to their ideas.  (maybe desperately,
in internal conflict over their own attitudes; if so, they have my
pity, but not any more positive feeling.)  so they won't give it up.

and that's why the responses have been so extreme, ranging from
agonized line-by-line replies to forthright cries of "fuck off,
asshole".  not to mention my frustrated, angry silence.  most
of us hear the hate, hear the threat.  some of us want to try
to teach, but most of us just want to protect ourselves.  

the guys who write shit like (1)-(3) are looking for applause in all
the wrong places.  of course, when they get reviled instead, they
see a conspiracy against them.  let 'em think what they will.
keep those insults coming, people.  and make the wall of silence
higher, too.

(and, please, try not to buy into these ideas even so far as to
disclaim effeminacy on the part of any individual gay man.
none of this "well, you can't see so-and-so here on the net,
but he's not the slightest bit nelly".)

as for all you "good gays", try to think of me as the most Fearsome
Faggot of your nightmares, guys.  (ain't electronic communication
grand?!  even my .gif doesn't give you a *clue* about how i prance and
flounce, or what my voice sounds like.  and you guys already know how
much i like to be fucked; i mean, is that feminine, or what?)  chew on
it, long and hard.

arnold (stylistically versatile, but not yet able to do a clay bond)

       (observing that he 'n's over all postings from idjits, so
         that he will not be reading their followups to this;
         noting that one of the delights of usenet is that no one
         can *make* you read *anything*)

       (stressing that he is *not* involved in any sort of "dialogue" -
          much less an "argument" - over any "issues" whatsoever;
          allowing you to mess up your own life in any way that
          hurts you satisfactorily, but not allowing you any toehold
          in his)

Newsgroups: soc.motss