Onlining Them Up #1: TomDickAndSally.com

URL: TomDickand Sally.com
Date Signed Up: Jan 2011
No. of Conversations had: 0
No. of Dates Achieved: 0

My first foray into the online dating scene, so I had nothing to compare it with! You can certainly find other men in your vicinity. There aren’t a huge number of them either in rural or urban bits of Britain I’ve been to, but then again, the Facebook banner ad marketed it as for “intelligent and discerning” homos, which essentially means one of the most ridiculously complicated Personality Test (with pie charts!) I’ve ever come across. All the basics of profile info are covered, and plenty of space to describe yourself, and you can also look at a series of baffling infographics on how you and your potential match compare. If you want to find someone who answers Personality Tests in the same way as you, this is all well and good, but it wasn’t way I went in for. FYI, for the thirteen year old school girls amongst you, you can send badly animated, sacharine animations like what AOL Instant Messenger pioneered in about 1999 if you like!
Overall Score: 1/10 – ironically, it’s a dating site that lacks personality.

Onlining Them Up: One Man, Six Dating Sites

I have a confession to make. I didn’t believe that internet dating could work. No matter how many friends told me about their wonderfully happy relationships (pass the sick bucket) that had emerged blinking from cyberspace, I firmly believed that it was impossible for the digital experience to recreate actually meeting an actual person and realising your mutual attraction…

Possibly that was because that sort of thing never happens to me. Ever. A year ago I decided to see if this was because I wasn’t using online dating sites. In that time I’ve racked up 6 memberships, only 2 of which have lapsed. In a digital age, these sites and experiences on them seem increasingly central to many gay mens’ lives. I remain open-minded as to whether this is a good or a bad thing, though I have been convinced that it is possible to connect with someone digitally on a real emotional level (I still have a thing about talking on the telephone though…)

Lets give it a go. I didn’t intend this to be a blog post, but given my new New Years Resolution, it’s kind of turned into one. These sites aren’t the only ones out there and my opinions are in no way scientifically validated. Some of the sites were marketed at me via targeted advertising (TomDickandSally, ManHunt), others were recommended via real people on social networks (Grindr, OKCupid), and the rest I just stumbled upon at random (LadsLads, BoyAhoy).

Over the next six days, I’ll post a new review of a site. These reviews are based solely on my recollection, and I haven’t revisited the sites other than to collect the few stats I’ve included for that small minority of  homosexuals with a chronic statistics fetish.

So, how do I feel after completing this odyssey? Well, I’m definitely still single, but definitely not alone in it any more.

Can You Play Human Rights Top Trumps?

During a recent item on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, barrister Paul Diamond who represents Eunice and Owen Johns, a Christian couple who had recently been barred for adoption after a social worker had “expressed concerns” when they said they could not tell a child a homosexual lifestyle was acceptable as a result of their Pentecostal Christian beliefs.

The courts decision to bar a couple from adoption because of their view of homosexuality raises some profound moral questions. At what point do laws designed to protect one minority actively impinge upon, and deny freedom toward, another social group? Does freedom of sexual orientation trump the right to hold religious beliefs? In short, what happens when two fundamental human rights come into conflict?

Paul Diamond’s position was very clear. In the ten-minute debate with former Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer, he argued that  “decent wholesome people” such as the Johns were being prevented from adoption because of a “new morality, or immorality dependent on where you stand on this [issue of homosexuality].” Up until 2000, the Johns had been able to adopt, until social workers became aware that – in Mrs Johns own words in a 2008 interview with the Daily Mail – she “would not be able” to tell a child that “homosexuality was fine.”

“I said I would have to tell a child that, as a Christian, I don’t believe in homosexuality  -  but I can give as much love and security as I possibly can.” However, the High Court rejected their appeal, with Lord Justice Munby and Mr Justice Beatson ruling that protecting people from discrimination because of their sexual orientation “should take precedence” over the right not to be discriminated against on religious grounds.

Diamond argued that to prevent the Johns from adopting was “totalitarian”: it is not the place of the state to set the standard of what was morally acceptable. He claimed that there was “something… very wrong with the moral and ethical compass of our country as a whole” following “surprising judicial decisions” in which “anti-discrimination [legislation] is taking precedence over freedom of religion and freedom of sexual orientation takes precedence over freedom of religion.”

Whilst many readers of this blog may feel little sympathy for the Johns’ plight, you will also doubtless be aware that Diamond’s argument that “there is a liberal tyranny in this land in which people are scared to say what they think or practice their beliefs… the balance has gone too far [in the favour of protecting minority groups]” receives widespread support.

However, Diamond’s representation of the Johns was called into question in the judge’s verdict. His claim that their religion was at the heart of the refusal to allow them to adopt was roundly rejected. Defending the legal establishment on Today, Lord Falconer claimed that Diamond, and the Christian Legal Centre that paid the Johns’ costs, were effectively “asking for special favours” for religious groups. The law as it stands prevents discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation whatever the origin of those views, religious or otherwise. In short, the Johns’ religion was not at issue: it was the simple fact that they could not endorse, or even acknowledge, homosexuality.

Eunice John told the BBC: “We have been excluded because we have moral opinions based on our faith and we feel sidelined because we are Christians… We are prepared to love and accept any child. All we were not willing to do was to tell a small child that the practice of homosexuality was a good thing.” The Johns had successfully fostered 15 children prior to the introduction of the 2008 Equal Rights (Sexual Orientation) Act.

The feeling that “rights culture” is detrimental to freedom was endorsed on the online Comments on the BBC article covering the ruling. Two weeks ago, on the day of the ruling, Simon commented: “I am a gay man and I would not tell a ‘small child’ that homosexuality is a ‘good thing’ .For a teenager unsure of sexual orientation it could be up for discussion but this decision is madness!”

Whether the commenter would agree with Paul Diamond’s view that the ruling was “totalitarian” and marked “excessive intervention by the state into private affairs” is uncertain. Madness and totalitarianism can go together in a number of ways. What is clear, however, is that there are strong views – and powerful moral arguments – on both sides.

As a result, it is arguably impossible to play top trumps with human rights. Personal freedom of conscience is a very precious thing, and should be defended to the death. Equally, if freedom of conscience is to mean anything it must be backed up by a liberal culture that defends the rights of all members of a given society. There is a strong legal and moral consensus in support of the ruling against the Johns. However, there is an equally strong counter-current of opinion that believes the balance has gone too far the other way. It is up to us as a society to ensure no-one’s rights are infringed in the search for a consensus.

“We’re Just Friends”

In my experience, it is remarkably hard to keep your sexuality private from your housemates.Certainly, I didn’t officially “come out” till Year 2, and didn’t become comfortable with the whole thing till much later, but during preparations for Halloween 2005 (which, for some reason, involved me being frankly lacquered in black eye make-up), my housemate (who was applying said make-up), said between slurbs of vodka jelly, “so, you are gay then?” As is traditional, I mumbled something incomprehensible and probably suggested putting Kings of Leon on. I’m not proud. The difference was, they were. The fact they weren’t going to treat me any differently — even though I didn’t know how I really wanted to be treated — made everything so much easier for me in the end.

But it’s also true when people say they never stop coming out. Only in the last few months, four or so years since I came out, has it felt appropriate to be really open with my Mum. Much as I hate jargon of all sorts, but we genuinely do live in a heteronormative society. It enforces all sorts of strange quirks on us gays.

One of my favourite presumptions about homosexuals is the urban myth that we all, without exception, have ravenous sexual appetites and, essentially, cannot keep our hands off each other. A few years ago, after a night out, I stayed over at a friend’s house, sharing the lounge with another friend who was also gay. We thought nothing of it – till my friend reported later that her parents had presumed we were a couple simply because we slept in the same room, regardless of the fact that we slept apart, or that one of us was in a relationship with someone else at the time!

As ever though, it’s my own dear family that provide the most bizarre exemplum for this blog. This year, NUS Student Pride takes place over my birthday weekend. When I told my Mum I was going – she gave me the usual “be sensible” talk, including the gem that “I mustn’t tell anyone it’s my birthday since I’ll go home with a prolapsed anus…”

Now, I had to Google that because – apart from sounding unimaginably painful – I wasn’t entirely clear what she meant. (You don’t need to look. It’s not pretty.) Now, I’ve been to a fair few friend’s birthday parties at gay venues, and I’m pretty certain that ““prolapsing of the anus” is not one of those homosexual birthday traditions I have missed. Getting twatted and humiliating yourself on the stage in Pulse, yes. Invasive cauterisation? Less common.

It’s a ridiculous story, and perhaps detracts from the serious point I was trying to make. Certainly, Britain is one of the most liberal countries when it comes to legal rights of homosexuals. However, in some ways, our own minds are conditioned in a very different way. Answer the following questions, I’d like to think there’s people out there who can answer no to all of them, but I have my doubts…

Have you ever… introduced a partner/date as a “friend”? Avoided publicly displaying intimacy or affection with a partner, either in public or due to the company you were in? Been anxious about being seen reading a gay publication (i.e. Attitude/GT) in public? Avoided answering (or lied about the sex of) a partner in a conversation with a neighbour/acquaintance? Avoided small-talk all together because of the awkwardness that could arise? Or received censure for not doing so?

We live in a society which – if we don’t keep fighting – is more than happy to classify love between individuals of the same gender as deviant, or at least marginalise it to the murky realm of “things that are just not talked about.” We all know about the things other people do that are wrong, hurtful or homophobic. However, the way we react – and the way we mentally process and deal with this information, often from a very young age – has left a deep psychological impression on the LGBT+* community. It’s no wonder that around 50% of LGBT people has suffered from depression at some point in their lives.

Note:

* Although this article is written from a gay man’s point of view, I feel that many of the points apply to lesbians, bisexuals and trans people as well as many other gender and sexuality minorities. More on these in a subsequent post.

Born Which Way?

So, bona fide absolutely-not-just-doing-it-to-sell-records gay icon Lady Gaga has released a song for the

gays. (See, it’s not all politics and shit on here.)

Going Gaga?

What we all want to know is whether it’s any good. Except I’m not going to pretend to be a music reviewer and leave you to make up your own mind about Gaga’s ballad-synth schizz. Rather, here at NJGS we’re curious as to what the “way” we were born means about who we are.

Without wishing to be cynical, Gaga makes a fair bit out of her peculiarly queer-pleasing upbeat pop. Sir Elton John, who recently made the singer god-mother to his baby son, declared Born This Way a gay anthem. Personally, I’ve never been too clear what one of those really is. Apparently, she’d done one already with Bad Romance. Wikipedia tells me that groups as diverse as Abba, The Weather Girls, George Michael and Cher have all done them too.

Perhaps “done them” is inappropriate. It makes it sound like something a poorly house-trained puppy might leave behind and I don’t mean that at all. I mean, for a start, they’re all perfectly adequate songs to dance to. Certainly, they are all popular on the mainstream gay scene, but then again, the majority of gay clubs are not famous for embracing diverse music tastes (as anyone who as been to a “gay-alternative” night will tell you!)

Pink and flashing. Must be gay.

Clearly, there is no music that is beloved by all homosexuals. Since modern science seems to think that sexuality is caused by genetics or some inherited factor, the same can’t be said of our music taste. (Unless of course the science pages of tomorrow’s Times announce that scientists have found a kink in the human genome in the shape of some raining men!)

Gay culture is as much a human construct as anything else in society. As such, Gaga’s latest ditty is frankly unimaginative in its construction. “It doesn’t matter if you love him, or capital H-I-M,” she warbles “just put your paws up, ‘Cause you were born this way, baby.” Forgive me, Mdme. Gaga if I don’t immediately nominate you for the hitherto imaginary “Best Lyric” Oscar in that ceremony going on in my head right now.

Of course, you could say that it’s big and brash and full of pride and all sorts of good things. You could say that – but I genuinely think it’s being chronically unimaginative to presume that Gaga speaks for the every gay person in the world in doing so. Furthermore, I fail to see why something must be “big and brash” to express “pride.” You could go further than that: arguably Gaga’s self-styled “gay anthem” goes a considerable distance toward perpetrating a particular stereotype of gay men. It’s dance music – and, let me tell you – not all gay men are dancers. Not all gay men go clubbing. Not all gay men are big or brash or screaming queens. Sure, Gaga reminds us that we were “born this way”, but the whole of mass popular culture goes some way to pigeonhole an entire sexuality into a misconceived musical, social and cultural niche in which “we’re all born superstars” with “mama[s]” who roll our hair and “put lipstick on”.

If the fight for equal rights regardless of sexuality (or gender for that matter) is to mean anything, it should mean equality amongst mainstream, heteronormative society, not as a subsection of it. As a group, we spend so much time escaping from pejorative labels only to seemingly go in search of more stereotypes. Hopefully Gaga’s song has gone some way to make people who listen to it think about growing up gay in a straight world. All the same, her inane lyrics play into clichés and stereotypes that could do more harm than good in the long run.

Better T-ogether?

In the last post, we took a few moments to define transgender as a concept. Here, we look at how trans fit into the wider LGBT community, both as individuals and through campaigns. Having spent most of the current academic year working on my university’s campaign committee, I thought now was as good a time as any to look a bit closer at the ins and outs of activism amongst the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.

Of course, as I alluded yesterday, some LGB groups – most notably the UK charity Stonewall – view trans as a separate case. It’s about gender, not sexuality, they say. We’re all about sexuality, not identity. OK, that’s probably quite a bad way to paraphrase it but you get the gist. It is such a polarising issue in society and general – in fact I’d wager that if you got any random group of people together, regardless of sexuality or gender identity, their would be room for considerable debate.

Whether sexuality is essential to identity is something we’ll look at in a completely separate post. I don’t think there would be such debate when it comes to gender. For a start, in a society in which we have become increasingly aware of the categories we use to classify other human beings, gender still figures highly. Where the words we use to describe racial difference, sexuality or physical or mental disability have increasingly been refined, there has been little comparable shift in what could grandly be termed our lexicography of gender.

Arguably this reflects deep mental attitudes as well. Just take a look at the salacious way UK tabloids The Sun and the Daily Mail reported on the controversy surrounding South African athlete, Caster Semenya, whose gender was questioned during the Bejing Olympics. On a day to day level, who hasn’t seen, been curious about or even pointed out an individual whose physical appearance does not unequivocally identify them as a boy or girl?

Gender is arguably the single most visible category in modern British society. Whilst many LGB people undoubtedly do face discrimination, prejudice and outright abuse because of the way they look, arguably what is at fault here is assumptions based on gender, not sexuality. Take for example the two most obvious steriotypes: the effeminate poof and the butch dyke. Physical appearance – be it a heavily tanned man with very stylish, dyed hair and a pink crop top, or, for that matter a woman with cropped hair, Doc Marten boots and numerous piercings – denotes more about gender than it does about sexuality.

Because of this, it strikes me as bizarre that the gay community (I use the term broadly to include both male and female homosexuals and bisexuals) is sometimes reticent to embrace trans issues. Whilst gender and sexuality are undeniably different, there are far more points in common than there are of difference. If we want to make prejudice against someone’s sexuality a thing of the past, we need to eradicate gender prejudice as well.

LGBwhaT?

Perhaps it’s a sign of how quickly one becomes integrated into the gay scene, but it does surprise me when “normal” people don’t even know what the acronym “LGBT” stands for. There’s no recognisable demographic either, in my personal experience. From medical students to shop workers, a significant number of the 18-30 or so people I regularly interact with don’t know what LGBT is.

It’s an interesting conundrum, not least because this is the generation which – if we are to believe any opinion poll, tabloid newspaper, TV teen drama or soap you’d care to name – that is most clued up on LGBT issues. Course, LGBT is a broad church – there’s girls who like girls, boys who like boys (the headline grabbing groups, as it were), then there’s girls who like boys and girls and boys who like girls and boys (and not in a Gaga-Perry kinda way).

Course, if you are Stonewall – the pioneering LGB charity – that’s where you stop. In fact, the T bit seems to be particularly pesky for most straight observers as well. It doesn’t help that there’s two superficially similar groups both starting with the 20^th letter of the alphabet. Transvestites (boys or girls who wear the clothing of the opposide gender) automatically bring to mind that incessant stereotype of the gay scene – the drag queen. It’s not to demean their contribution to LGBT politics,  but drag and transgender are very different things.

The “T” stands for transgender, which is generally used for a person who identifies as any gender other than their biologically attributed sex. It can be used to refer to an individual before, during or after gender reassignment therapy or any similar treatment designed to alter the body to the felt gender. The term can be applied to both to individuals who are biologically female but identify as and may undergo treatment to become male, and vice-versa.

Whilst drag queens or kings may be transgendered, they equally can be cis-gendered (an irritating piece of jargon which means that an individuals felt gender and biological sex match up). That is to say, they look (and are biologically) male or female and feel or identify as the same. In the next post, we look at trans issues and why they are integral to lesbian, gay and bisexual politics.

For information or support on trans issues, visit The Angels or Transgenderzone.com. In the near future, I’m hoping to tidy up the blogroll and list support/information sites for L, G, B and T to this blog, as well as more general news, politics and fun content.

NB: I hope my definition above covers everything, but here is the OED’s definition of transgender for clarity: “Of, relating to, or designating a person whose identity does not conform unambiguously to conventional notions of male or female gender, but combines or moves between these; transgendered.”