From the "happy" people at the University of Michigan...

In case...you know...some of you are doing it wrong...

How to be Gay: Male Homosexuality and Initiation.

I don't know if it includes the part where any straight person who disagrees with even the slightest part of any homosexual activity, whether physical, political, or otherwise, will be immediately deemed an outrageous, religiuos-zealot homophobe bent on destroying every gay person who ever lived...

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"You get the respect that you give" - cnredd

Why do you assume that?

Is a study in queer culture automatically a threat?

Sarcasm...

Yes...

It takes time away from IMPORTANT things...

__________________
"You get the respect that you give" - cnredd

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Jesus Was A Liberal

If a certain course of action makes the mouth-breathers furious, then that’s a good policy. – The Practical Environmentalist

Did you go to college?
Do you know how "ELECTIVES" work?

It's redundant how some will complain loudly about even the slightest presence of gay culture. A perception. A discussion.

Is this class replacing calculus?
Do YOU or ANYBODY ELSE HAVE TO take it???

Then why the hell are you complaining?


I have found that the people who complain about gays are more prone to complain about being called a "religious-zealot homophobe" than they are to be called a "religious-zealot homophobe".
I've done the math on this board and others with handy-dandy search engines, and typically found that the "complainers" use the word a LOT more often, unprompted, then the "gays".
Typically, a LOT of the use of the gays using the word comes IN REPLY to the "complainer" using it first...

The complaint is a tool employed to try to belittle the classification, to make people ignore the ACCURACY of the term when it is used...

And furthermore, like the "Bush haters" complaint, it's meaningless. If a person is a "religious-zealot homophobe", that no more justifies any counter-argument than it does somebody being a "Bush hater"...

Don't be silly. Courses are there in college for students to choose what THEY find important to study.

Obviously enough students are interested for them to have the course.

That is pretty presumptuous of you.

When I figured out I was gay, which was when I was in college, having access to a college class like this would have helped me a LOT. And I can say that I would certainly not have been alone in that classroom.

Speaking from experience, reinventing the wheel is not a good use of one's limited time and energy, in so, so many ways.

I can also see substantial value in such a class for non-gay people, learning how to relate to and understand gay family members and friends, and how they experience the world.

And I find that most homophobes (and by that, I literally mean people who are scared of gay people) have never met a gay person, and don't know the first thing about gay people. Just think how a class like this could help people like that take the first step out of ignorance and fear toward understanding and co-existence.

I had a lot more gay friends in the seventies than I do now, and especially from the standpoint of hanging out together, and one thing I observed whenever I accompanied one to a gay bar was that they were often a lot more "gay" when at at the bar than when not, and the fact I was tagging along with them was a subject in and of itself. Especially when I was the only male present at a lesbian bar, the close friends of my friend were fine with that, but based upon some of the looks by others, if looks could kill........

I think there is a tendency towards conformity in any sub group, and I have to admit thathe notion of "learning to be gay" seems tantamount to "conforming to rigid expectations", and amounts to little more than an affectation if it is part of a group identification where adherence to superficial things made for acceptance and not conforming leads to exclusion. There are certainly gay stereotypes for men and women both, of course, but I think there is a fine line between discussing these from a sociological standpoint and setting them up as ideals to be "learned". What about the gay man who dresses in blue jeans and tatty tee shirt, can't stand show music, and is a political moderate? Is he any less gay?

People create litmus tests for one another, and if that litmus test exists in the form of "you aren't gay enough" when applied by other gay people, I would imagine the need to conform would be strong. If this course studies these mechanisms, I think that would be a good thing for gay people in general, since the object of any (for lack of better term) consciousness raising experience should be to allow people to just be who they are instead of them having to adhere to the rigid expectations of others. I would think this would be just as true within the gay community, itself, as it would be between the gay community and the rest of society.

Last I checked, being gay wasn't an act; its a sexual orientation. I'm really curious as to how one "acts" gay. I'm also kinda curious about what is so difficult about carrying out this act that it requires college level training to pull it off.

Frankly, I think the course is a joke and whoever decided to put this in the course list should lose his or her tenure and be laughed out of academia.

Oh God forbid you be gay and not follow along with the screeching, finger-snapping, sashaying "act" of the others when you are around them. It's one of two reactions when you are just being yourself; you either have issues with your own homosexuality (the self loathing homosexual) or you are looked at as some kind of conquest for every nelly dick-hungry bottom slut in the bar.

I'm going to be honest here; as a rule, I don't like other gay men. There is something ingrained in them that tells them it's okay to be a bunch of pretentious, shallow, slutty, over dramatic travesties of human decency. They believe that their right to personal choice and all other civil liberties grants them some added right to be catty bitches. I laugh my ass off when I hear the words "gay" and "community" used in conjunction. Sure, its a community much in the same way that back-biting cheerleaders in high school were a community. Throw in some sequins and a designer rehab center and yeah, you got a gay community.

Now lesbians...they are a different story. Love me some lesbians.