First of all, I am not against homosexuality*^. I believe in personal freedoms, and I think it's ridiculous to tell someone what (or whom) they should or shouldn't love, emotionally, or physically.
What I
am against is that in modern Western culture (my culture), people are losing track of the differences between homosexuality and intimacy (or "closeness"), and even friendship. In many cultures past and present, a man holding another man's hand, or hugging him, has been a gesture of friendship or love. In our culture, most people assume that two men holding hands are homosexuals. We don't seem to understand that there can be non-sexual intimacy between heterosexual men.
A football locker room is a perfect example of this phenomenon. Men are naked together, they slap each others' butts, or snap each other with towels. It would seem that this is a perfect example of non-sexual male bonding (or "intimacy"), thus proving me wrong. But having been in locker-room situations myself, I know that it takes about 10 seconds of butt-slapping before the homosexual jokes start flying. Comfortable and a-sexual as naked men might be in each other's presence, the idea of homosexual attraction always looms, prompting them to joke about it, and assert their aggressive (ie: heterosexual) masculinity in order to reassure themselves and others that they themselves are not, in fact, homosexual.
One thing that prompted me to write on this topic was the discovery that some fans of the original
Star Trek series have theorized (and written fan fiction) about Kirk and Spock being romantically involved with each other. I find this idea far-fetched, if not ludicrous. Yes, the two are friends, yes, they live on the same ship (albeit, in seperate quarters), yes they "love" each other in that each would lay down his life for the other in a heartbeat, but it's a stretch to think that therefore they would have sex with each other. I recently watched the entire original
Star Trek series and it never once occurred to me that Kirk and Spock could be homosexual lovers.
Similar confusion comes up in the
Star Trek series
Voyager, in which the surrogate mother-daughter relationship between Captain Janeway and Seven of Nine is mistaken, by some fans, for a lesbian relationship.
Heterosexual people in our society are not the only ones who are confused. Homosexuals also blur the lines. This is perhaps more understandable. As an oppressed minority*, it makes sense that they would want to claim something as powerful and pervasive as intimacy as a characteristic trait of homosexuality. I have no problem with this, in theory, but it's gone too far when people begin to think that intimacy between men is a trait exhibited solely by homosexuals.
In one of the commentary tracks to the film
The Fellowship of the Ring, Ian McKellan, a gay actor, talks about how he encouraged actor Sean Astin to take Elijah Wood's hand in one scene. McKellan explains that as a gay man, he had a greater awareness of the power of this intimate gesture than the heterosexual actors playing the roles. I agree that it was a good acting choice, and I accept that Ian McKellan is a wise and experienced actor, but it disturbs me that he would choose to credit his sexual preference for awareness of the power of intimacy.
Finally, there is the case of Dumbledore in the
Harry Potter series. Dumbledore is a kind and caring man who clearly loves his students, particularly Harry. The book actually doesn't say that he is homosexual, but the author recently said that she "always thought of Dumbledore as gay,"** The fact that Rowling would think of a man exhibiting these traits as being homosexual degrades the notion that a man can be a loving and caring father figure
and be heterosexual.
While our culture has gained understanding, in the last 30 years, about the variety of human sexuality, it has also lost understanding about the differences between intimacy and sexuality. Intimacy is not the same as sexual attraction, nor is physical or emotional affection between members of the same sex a marker of homosexuality.
*^A friend of mine pointed out that some people find the term "homosexual" to be disrespectful. I mean no disrespect; when I use this term, I use it in the scientific sense, and am referring soley to a person's sexual preference, or orientation, not their actions.
*The percentage of homosexuals in the United States is commonly thought to be between 5 and 10%.
**http://www.mahalo.com/Dumbledore_Gay_Quotes
