Homophobia - The True meaning of the word.

Warning;
This blog will contain - Strong language and Sexual content.


Hey blog world, sorry it's been a while; I've been wracking my brains on a subject to blog about, and from New Year I've been working on the subject of Homophobia.

To start off I'd like to state that this subject came to me while I was in Holland for New Year, along with our usual group (Minus my friends brother) we had an old friend of my friends join us; but I was told that he "didn't want to sleep in the same room as me" and that my friend thought he might be slightly homophobic.

Now, I'm not really one for caring much; everyone is entitled to their own opinions when it comes to sexuality and how they view them - but for a guy who has only met me two or three times to come out with something like this; it fucked me off somewhat. I mean, Holland + New Year = Me too drunk to contemplate anything, let alone actually do anything.

But anyway, I digress; and this topic is going to be fairly lengthy, so I'll apologise now for random tangents.

Lets start by looking at the word: HOMOPHOBIA.

The online dictionary states that the word "PHOBIA" means the following:

noun
a persistent, irrational fear of a specific object, activity, or situation that leads to a compelling desire to avoid it.

And we can sum up the remainder of the word "HOMO" as a slang term used to describe someone who is homosexual. So in truth then, HOMOPHOBIA means - a fear of gay people.

But...

What exactly does your "average" person have to fear from gay people?

There is the old saying that Homophobics are scared, not of actual gay people; but their own latent homosexual tendancies, this means they then lash out at openly gay people because they fear it within themselves.

If a person doesn't like gay people; should we really be labelling them as "homophobic"? Or should we just label them "homo haters"? As it's clear through plain logic that homophobia is a fear of -not hatred of- gay people.

Back then to my question of What do they need to fear? In answer absolutely nothing at all; a gay person is exactly the same as a straight person or even a bi-sexual person. The only difference is that homosexuals do not feel sexual desire for the opposing sex.

During school we are not (I can only go by my own schooling here) taught to fear gay people, in fact the only place which speaks out against homosexuality is religion - but even then, with the advancement of the 20th Century and coming into the new millenium fewer and fewer people are practicing actual religion. So even here the subject of "evil homo's" is becoming far rarer than in the early 1900's.

I have heard it said that straight men worry that gay men will fancy them. I can only reply to this with "Hello? We have types too you know."

Yes I know (And feel I should put in here) that there are gay men (And women) out there who are labelled "predatory" gays, and they believe that turning a straight guy (or gal) is a crowning achievement. But why label us all like that because of a few individuals? (Who are even shunned in most gay circles) I mean, there are straight people out there who think that "Turning a gay" is their crowning achievement; should we then fear them? Should the term "Heterophobic" become mainstream because of these people?

Social stigma is totally running wild here; it seems to me that homophobia is actually tolerated for the fact that -clearly- we're all out to steal straight people to "our evil fold" but then "hetetophobia" is ignored.

Once again I hit a tangent - lol I do apologise.

With the passing of the Equality Act in 2006 homophobia has become less and less apparent, there isn't as much hate crime against gay people by "homophobics" although it should be said that when the Bill was first brought into Parliament in 2004 it only banned discrimination against Religion or Belief; homosexuality was not added until later (After the general election in 2005) when Openly gay Peer Lord Alli lobbyed to have sex orientation added to the Bill.

The following exerpt was taken from Wikipedia:

The Equality Bill first appeared in the 2004/05 Session, but did not make it into law before Parliament was dissolved ahead of the 2005 general election. In its manifesto, the Labour Party promised to reintroduce the Bill, which it duly did upon being returned to power.
At this stage, only ‘religion or belief’ was included in the anti-discrimination clauses. The Labour Party specifically did not wish to ban discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation. There were suggestions this policy decision was made to appease homophobic religious voters in the run-up to the election.[2]
After the Bill was reintroduced, further lobbying by openly-gay Peer the Lord Alli succeeded in forcing the government to add homophobic discrimination to the Bill.

We can see here that once again; Religion plays a part in homophobia, but only religion (as I've said, education does not cause homophobia)

Thankfully the amendments to the Bill were all wrapped up in the Equality Act 2010 - but again I digress.

We'll go back to the guy from Holland at New Year; several times during the night he turned his back to me, standing within gropable reach - if he were truly "homophobic" would he have done that? Knowing full well I was stood behind him.

Now through body language I can say that turning your back on someone is excluding them from something (A gesture of dismissal if you will) and I guess this could play a part, but once again a true homophobe (homo hater) would NOT have been able to turn his back (thus presenting his ass) to an openly gay guy.

And now once more I come back to the subject of the word; HOMOPHOBIA and how I believe it should not be used to umbrella people who generally hate gay people. Although the thought of an actual homophobic by definition of the word gives me a moment of amused chuckling - imagine being scared of a gay person LOL... But yeah, I think the word should be changed completely to eliminate the "phobia" tag since it is not completely accurate.


I'm sorry once again, I kinda hit a tangent and then lost my train of thought lol; so the end kinda sucked. But I thought I would share this with my blog subscriber (Who rocks) and my facebook friends as I think it's definitely a "hard-hitting" subject and was worth the time it took to research and blog.

Review - Music Festivals - Caution! Contains Strong Language and references to drug use.

Disclaimer - the views and opinions found here are my own; I will not be held liable or accountable if you disagree with any of the written statements below!

First of all a big thank you to Samorie Bynum for suggesting Music Festivals as my first review topic.

And also a big thank you to Ca Ling and Samorie Bynum for following my blog :D You gals rock!

So to start with, Music Festival - when you hear the phrase you instantly think "Glastonbury", "Download" or "Woodstock" which are three of the UK's biggest and best known Music Festivals. But having googled "Music Festivals of 2011" I unearthed a website called "The Festival Calender" it gives you a line up of all upcoming festivals (naturally and perhaps a bit obvious) for the rest of the year.

It starts off with some smaller festivals with tickets anywhere from £7.50 per day or £30 for the weekend; right up to £108 for the weekend (That one is £125 on the gate) and from what I read about the festivals (Aside from Artists I've never actually heard of) they are pretty family oriented - The Alchemy Festival actually boasts its own childrens area with activities for the kids at no extra price. Alchemy states they hope to have a cider tent selling home made cider and mead; and herein lays (In my eyes) the true ethos of the music festival.

While people do go to the Festivals to enjoy the music and the company of like minded individuals (I cannot dispute this having never been to a music festival) the social stigma attached to the name "Music Festival" will forever be known as a place where you can drink/take drugs. Indeed the Isle of Wight festival lists the following phrase in its description:

"They packed onto the Isle of Wight ferry from the mainland for up to five days (although some stayed considerably longer) of live rock, communal living, free love and mind-bending substances"

The key phrase I feel it wise to note in this passage is "mind bending substances" - Hallucinogenic drugs are commonplace in music festivals; indeed I've known people go to Glastonbury purely to "Get wankered on skunk and E's" while the substances are illegal (Most of them being Class A controlled drugs within the UK) and most of the music festivals in their introductory packages do state that "The use of Class A controlled Drugs will result in your removal from the festival" and a police search is given on arrival, I have to ask the question of "Do we honestly believe that this will hinder people?" The answer I fear is clearly "No" People who go to these things to abuse the system and take these drugs will find ways of smuggling them in; no one police force has a fail safe way to find these substances.

Back to the Isle of Wight music festival then; it takes place at Seaclose Park, Newport on the Isle of Wight (Gotta love my ability to point out the obvious lol) and runs from 10th of June to the 12th of June - so far the listing hasn't added any bands yet; although the official website names bands such as "Kings of Leon", "Kasabian", "Foo Fighters" and "The Kaiser Chiefs" as headliners. So far to my "Festival-virgin" eyes this looks like a pretty good line up so far; Sunday has "Pixie Lott" lined up (Although apologies to Pixie Lott fans, but I had to giggle at the fact she is near the bottom of the line-up)

The same weekend as the Isle of Wight festival we have the infamous "Download" festival, which boasts:

"Rock and metal fest. 3 days of axe wielding mayhem. 2 outdoor stages and a chill out area in the woods! Has big names and plenty of sweat, beer and leather. Hear those Marshall amps turned up to 11"

Once again the line up on the festival planner isn't detailed, the website however has a massive! list of bands - Def Leppard, Linkin Park, The Darkness, Bullet For my Valentine, Disturbed, Korn, Pendulum, Black Veil Brides, Rob Zombie and many more lined up for the three day event - it even states day tickets are limited but available. The festival itself however costs over £200 for the weekend. Not surprising with the artists lined up. But once again looking at the description we have "plenty of sweat, beer and leather"

Now back to the original point of the topic (I fear I may have gone off on a tangent) While Music Festivals are supposedly one of the best experiences a person can have in their lifetime; I have to wonder what people think actually happens. Drug usage is common - especially at Glastonbury, the description of festivals includes blatant drug usage "Mind bending substances" and this - in my eyes - is the promotion of drug usage.

My final thought and question is this - Should the police be given new powers to search for concealed drugs at these festivals? I'm sure they aren't all as bad as I've probably made them look, but the reputation these things have for their drug-friendly atmospheres makes it hardly a place I would want to take a child.

Next Review - Movies.

Peace out!

The Beginning

Hello Blog world - Once again I have refreshed my profile, added a new blog feed and plan to keep it up. lol! But seriously I'll try my hardest to keep this one up.

To start with here, I guess I should cover some basics of what you might see in my blogs. So you know whether or not you want to read them:

• Profane Language (If I'm reviewing or ranting this does come up)
• Sexual References (If you're a prude it's not recommended for you)

The main type of blog I created this for is what I'll term "Ian's Corner" reviews or my own opinions on things that "matter to the people" - I'll be posting this link on facebook; if a subject comes up (i.e music) I'll go into the song, it's lyrics and come up with my own (Probably biased) opinion, alongside (I hope) an impartial review of the subject.

To sum up my bullet points then;

Profane Language

This quite literally means most swear words (Aside from the "C" word because its crass and uncouth) - as I said I'll be linking this on facebook, and while I try to keep my facebook profile as clean as I can, my blog will be no-holds-barred Ian. So if your easily offended I would recommend you don't read it.

Sexual References

By this I don't mean graphic sex, I wouldn't blog graphic sex or blatantly crude innuendoes. I merely mean that because of my sexuality I may occasionally refer to something with language that one might not find in polite conversation - and as the bullet point says; if your a prude or easily offended by sexual language - don't read it. Once again while my facebook is kept clean as I possibly can; this blog isn't going to be, this is a place where I can voice my honest opinion on things and that does involve using language that you may not have heard me use.