Homo-Thought for the Day

Some homosexuals are prone to say that "Being gay is a blessing." I'm pretty sure I've even seen printed on rainbow-colored plaques at  GBLT  bookstores.

I get the sentiment, and if you don't get it, you should consider that blessings are not a finite, zero-sum resource. In other words, when someone says "God bless America," it is not meant to be taken as a wish that other nations should be less favored by God; and if someone says "it's a blessing to be homosexual," you should not take it as an assertion that homosexuals are more favored than heterosexuals.

Moreover, to say that something is a "blessing" is not to say that it must be a blessing for everyone, or to deny that it can be a curse for some people. I would say that human sexuality in general is both a blessing and a curse, and I don't expect that would be a particularly controversial statement. Thus, if I were to go around with a T-shirt reading I'm blessed with homosexuality!, what it would really mean is something like:

I feel especially lucky that the sex-drive part of my brain is wired a bit differently from that of most other males, causing me to pitch a tent in my boxer shorts when I see naked men, but to yawn indifferently when I see naked women.
 
This gives me a perspective on male/female sexual and social dynamics that many men lack, and shapes my relationships with men and women in ways that are sometimes a nuisance and sometimes advantageous. But overall, this homosexuality thing has worked out very well for me, because I've chosen to channel it in constructive ways.

Of course, being secular and scientificky, I am apt to say that homosexuality is not so much a blessing as it is a special mutant power, like in X-Men. But MY superhuman ability is that I can maintain a full erection while being roughly groped by coarse, smelly, hairy soldiers and firefighters -- how many straight dudes could make that boast, I ask you?

Labels: homosexuality, philosophy

posted by Throbert | 7/11/2008 06:25:00 PM |

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