not the Axe effect the commercials talk about

There's something odd I've been meaning to bring up.  I think at this point we all know about Axe products, right?  Male perfume, deodorant, and shower products sold with the specific claim that it makes men irresistible to women.

I'm hardly the most ardent feminist out there.  I imagine many would question whether I even qualify for the term.  But still, come on, commercials that show people spraying on a certain brand of perfume and then having women seemingly drawn in against their will, acting like mindless animals that can't resist the scent?  This is not a positive image to present.  Again and again, the message is presented as "use our male perfume and pick up chicks".

I've since met a whole bunch of Axe wearers.  I always figured that Axe would be used mostly by sad, pathetic teenagers in a desperate attempt to get some action.  Well apparently that stereotype doesn't work.  Some people just like the smell of their shampoo or shower gel.  So I kind of had to get over the image presented by the advertisements.  Odd that.

So this brings me to the point of this little tale.  When I found myself taking a shower in a house occupied by two gay guys, I almost laughed out loud when I saw several Axe products in the shower.  Yep, right there on the bottle was the picture depicting a silhouette of a man with the outline of a woman running her hands through his hair.  The bottles were covered in that offensively stupid marketing message, and they were being used by two guys who had no desire to have women sucked onto their bodies as if by a force beyond their control.

So maybe this is obvious.  Maybe it shouldn't be a surprise to me that gay guys can enjoy the same scents that straight people do.  I've since run into the concept of gender neutral scents, and why not?  Part of the important message of the whole GLBT revolution is that there isn't just one thing guys like and one thing women like.  It probably makes sense that it seems like it's more popular with young people in general than sad, pathetic straight guys looking to pick up women for sex.

But anyway, there's something I'd like to see the makers of Axe do.  I'd really like to see them get away from the whole "it makes women want your body" thing.  But if they're not ready to go there yet, if they don't really see a way to transition to a message that's more like "Axe, it makes you smell nice and people might enjoy that", then...  I'd love to see them make a gay commercial.

And I mean a gay equivalent of their usual commercials.  A guy sprays on their stuff and then other men are just flung towards him as if he'd just become a penis magnet.  Have fun with it, make it gloriously silly.  I feel like it would go some distance to rehabilitating their brand name a little bit.

Okay, so I see the obvious problem there.  Among the sad, pathetic teenager market at least that could be catastrophic.  Some people probably would seriously fear that they'd be having to fight off gay men with a stick if they used it.  But that's kind of my point.

I've met a lot of people who seem to like Axe products.  And it's not like the stuff makes them smell terrible, I've realized I like some of their scents.  But for the love of god, can they do something about the whole "it controls the minds of women and turns them into weak willed sex slaves" message?  A gay equivalent commercial could be an interesting first step in transitioning their message.  A bold one, to be sure, but, well, they're not exactly known at this point for subtlety.  And it could provide a decent starting point to start moving to a message that's more like "Axe, a sexy scent for sexy people" or something similar.  I'm not saying that's a revolutionary message, but it's got to be better than "Axe, it dominates the wills of women and makes them your plaything".

but why even make the choice?

So yes, I said my piece on the unspoken implications of the "they choose to be gay" argument.  But let's step back a bit.  Why would someone even choose to be gay in the first place?

No, seriously.  Let's imagine an hypothetical soon to be gay person.  He's grown up in this society, he knows the stigma attached to homosexuality.  He's heard "gay" used as a vague, almost meaningless insult.  He knows that even to not dress in an adequately masculine manner is grounds for abuse from his peers.  He is used to living under the microscope, with his every action judged by a conformist peer group.  Any example of not fitting in is met with some manner of abuse.

So then this hypothetical individual chooses to be gay.  For the love of god, why?  Why choose to paint a giant metaphorical bullseye over your head?  Why say "ya'know what, I'm attracted to girls, they're all well and good, but nah, I'm going to date other dudes just to make my life a living hell"?

It's hard enough finding a single individual you want to spend the rest of your life with as a straight person.  Why on Earth would you choose to pick from a much smaller pool of potential mates?

I'm not saying that people always make the most logical choices in their lives.  But this idea that homosexuals choose to be that way, that they choose to join a marginalized minority where they'll face constant discrimination, is just dumb.  I mean, really, they choose to become so persecuted that some end up committing suicide just to make the pain stop?  The implication really is that gay people are thinking "well, I could decide to date Suzy instead of Adam and make all this stop, but nah, I'll just kill myself instead".

choice for thee, but not for me

We've all heard some side to the "people choose to be gay" argument.  I agree with those that have said that it's not even a worthwhile argument.  Does it matter if it's a choice?  If I choose to play dungeons and dragons as a hobby, does that mean it's perfectly legitimate to outlaw it for no good reason?

We all know what "you choose to be gay" really means.  It's the last gasp of a dying conscience.  It's a person who realizes that he is doing some very uncool things to a fellow human being.  It is someone who is free to engage in socially and governmentally sanctioned relationships who is working to deny the same ability to a whole class of people.  And at some point he realizes what he's doing.  He's working to harm other people.  And he has a choice.  Stop trying to do evil, or rationalize it.  Sadly he chooses to make himself feel better instead of making the world a better place, and he does it by telling himself that it's really their fault that he's doing this to them.  If they'd just stop being gay he wouldn't have to work to dehumanize them.

But still something has always bothered me about this.  I mean, the argument carries with it the clear assumption that the person using it understands sexuality to be a matter of choosing which gender to get into sexual relations with.  It implies that the person making that claim is equally attracted to both genders.  That he chooses to be straight.

I tried asking someone on youtube this once.  He'd pulled out the choose to be gay argument, and I asked him if he realized that that implied that he was gay.  He just said something to the effect of "you must have misunderstood me" and restated his argument without changing anything.  It was still there, the unstated assumption that all people choose which gender to be sexual with.  We went around and around like this, with him refusing to even indicate that he understood what I was saying, until I got exasperated and asked him point blank if he chose to be straight.  Nope, he told me.  But he couldn't let it go at that, he had to follow it up with an assertion that gay people do choose to be gay.

I don't really know what to make of this.  I feel like he was genuinely puzzled.  He seemed to be a legitimately straight individual, but somehow he didn't see the hypocrisy in demanding that while he can't choose which gender to be attracted to, gay people absolutely can and do.

Is it a failure of empathy?  Forgetting that GLBT people are even human?  Have these people gotten so accustomed to thinking of GLBT people as "the other" that they casually assume that they must be governed by a completely different set of primitive drives?  No, that doesn't work, because if they believed that then they might be willing to consider that some men want to sleep with other men AND NOT WOMEN.  But that thought never seems to come up.

So what is it?  A lack of curiosity?  An unwillingness to question their own biases?  Knowledge, on some low level, that this is a bullshit defense that doesn't even make sense, but also knowledge that this is what allows them to not see themselves as monsters, so they refuse to let it go?

are you suuuure you the meaning of the story of Sodom?

So on to my inspiration for starting making posts again.  On the issue of religious objections to homosexuality, the story of Sodom and Gomorrah is near and dear to many believer's hearts.  Of course it's popular to point out that the bible says homosexuality is an abomination, but the problem with that is that atheists read the bible too, and they found out that the bible also says shellfish are an abomination, as is wearing clothing made of mixed fabrics.  Yet you can readily see anti gay bigots wearing poly/cotton blends and eating at Red Lobster instead of picketing the place.

So yes, Sodom and Gomorrah seems to be a good story.  God smited two entire cities because of the icky buttsex.  Surely that shows that it grosses god out as much as it does nasty little bigots here on Earth.  Except apparently not.

I was originally linked to that video by a blogger who I tend to refer to as "the non evil evangelical" but perhaps I should just call him Fred Clark.  He reminded me of it in a blog post last Sunday.  Fred likes to post passages from the bible on Sundays, and while a lot of them tend to leave me cold this one interested me.  Go on, read it.  It's god lecturing the population of two cities about why he's unhappy with them.  He starts off by saying that making sacrifices to him isn't enough to make him happy, but then he says why he's unhappy.  I'm writing this in the Blogger android app and it seems to lack blockquote formatting abilities, so I'll have to do this crudely.  But anyway, yes, why he's unhappy with them:

"your hands are full of blood.
Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean;
remove the evil of your doings
from before my eyes;
cease to do evil,
learn to do good;
seek justice,
rescue the oppressed,
defend the orphan,
plead for the widow."

You'll notice a complete lack of instructions to keep gays from marrying.  Learning to do good, seeking justice and rescuing the oppressed could easily encompass stopping trying to discriminate against GLBT people.

So yes, odd that.  The centerpiece of the evidence for why god hates the gays really seems to be about hating selfish assholes who oppress minorities and take more than their fair share of the pie.

Is it worth noting that the tea party types elected to office on a wave of theological purity seem to mostly care about keeping gays oppressed and cutting spending on services for the poor?  Might I be excused the rhetorical question of asking just who the inhabitants of Sodom really are today?

Look, I'm an atheist.  I only see the bible as a collection of often contradictory stories written by many people that reflect the times they were living in.  There are certainly some good ideas in it, but there are a lot of terrible ones too.  I seek better reasons for supporting or opposing something than "ancient mythology says I should".  But when people who claim to be following ancient mythology end up citing passages that argue against them, what's an atheist to think?

on GLBT rights

Let's try another go at this blogging thing.  I've been meaning to say a few words on the subject of gay rights since that's kind of been in the news a teeny tiny bit lately.

First off, the explanation.  I'd always been in favor of equality for LGBT types.  I didn't really know any (except one friend that I always wondered about, but never really knew for sure and never asked) until ending up going to a gay bar with a friend and her roommate that I didn't know was gay until I found out that it was a gay bar that we were going to.  It was an interesting experience.  But anyway, the principle of equality for GLBT people was easy enough to embrace.  I mean, it means greater happiness for them and it doesn't harm me or other people in any way (we'll ignore the bigots who have their feelings hurt if they have to interact with someone they'd rather be discriminating against).  Win win situation from the principles I try to live by.

And then I accidentally met some gay people.  The guy at the gay bar I only met the one time.  We got along great, but after that night I never saw him again, I was only visiting the area.  But anyway, I like playing multiplayer computer games online.  One day I was playing on a server that, while not exclusively gay themed, had a lot of gay people on it.  For some reason I got invited into a group VOIP call after that, and I just sort of got assimilated into a small group of players where many of them were gay.  They were fun to play with so I kept joining them.

And then it got personal.  I don't know if any of them desired to get married.  But if any of them wanted to, and anyone wanted to stop them, then they were messing with my friends.  It's easy to support equality rights on principle as a kind of abstract thing.  Yeah, these people I've never knowingly met deserve the same chance at happiness that anyone else has, the same protections and opportunities.  But when it's someone you know, someone you've talked with and laughed with, it becomes a lot stronger.  I've actually met a few of that group in person now, through a series of amazing coincidences and crazy plans that I still can't quite believe worked out.  But even before that, it had still become personal.  "The Gay Agenda" had become these actual people who were my friends.  When you hear a religious person speaking out against gay marriage being this horrible thing for society and you know a gay couple that just want to be together and live a life together, something snaps in you.  You see the religious person for what he is.  A despicable person proudly parading his hatred in public, demanding the right to hurt other people to cater to his own biases.  You realize how absurd the idea that two men getting married and just forming a life together could bring down western civilization is. 

So that's the why to the next series of posts.  Speaking up is perhaps the least I can do.  But it's a start.  It's hardly even an act of bravery or anything, the polls show that a majority of Americans now agree, at least in terms of GLBT people deserving the right to marry.  At this point equality is the easy side to support, but in a much delayed gesture of support to the various GLBT people I've met over the years who have been good to me, there are some things I want to say.