Think of the (gay) children!
Today I have been frightened away from The Guardian by a horror-show of an article by Julie Bindel, about the Tommy Sheridan perjury affair. If you a made of stronger mettle than me, feel free to go and read it.
Instead, I found myself looking over at The Independent, which sometimes ventures into Guardian middle class moralising territory, not least in the columns of Johann Hari.
I had to take a deep breath. I find Hari’s style of writing emotive, schlocky, (is that a word), melodramatic and frankly just bad. I think he should win an award for bad journalism. For bad prose.
But people love Hari. He is the people’s gay princess. The gay lay preacher of our times. He’s a shorter, rounder, more English Dan Savage . So I thought I’d try and face him out.
Hari’s latest sermon, I mean article, is entitled ‘why is it wrong to protect gay children?’
Well, Johann, I have read my Freud and I understand how our sexualities begin their development in early childhood if not before. But ‘gay children’? Do children really identify themselves as gay? It paints a picture of a seven year old, living in a loft appartment in Manchester, sipping on a martini and checking out if he has any messages on his Gaydar. I didn’t think there was such a thing as ‘gay children’.
Anyway. Hari is writing in response to recent comments in the Tory press and by Conservatives, about how a ‘gay agenda’ is being set, in order to corrupt children from an early age.
‘The Conservative MP Richard Drax said gays were trying to impose “questionable sexual standards” on kids, while the Daily Mail said we were mounting a massive “abuse of childhood.”’ writes Hari.
But he puts us – er- straight and explains: ‘Here’s what is actually happening. A detailed study by the Schools Health Education Unit found that in Britain today, 70 percent of gay children get bullied, 41 percent get beaten up, and 17 percent get told at some point in their childhood that they are going to be killed.’
Now I need to stop right there. Because I am wary about research like this. Partly because, as I have pointed out, the concept of ‘gay children’ does not work for me as a measurable phenomenon. Most children and young people are not sure about their sexual orientation, or at least don’t act on it, until they are well into their teens. Also it is not made clear the nature of the ‘bullying’ that ’70% of gay children’ experience, or how the survey was conducted. There certainly is no link provided by Hari to the research paper/findings in question.
He could be referring to thisresearch conducted on behalf of Stonewall, the Gay Rights organisation:
http://www.stonewall.org.uk/at_school/education_for_all/quick_links/education_resources/4004.asp
Apart from the fact the research was commissioned by Stonewall, who have a vested interest in proving that homophobia is a big problem in our society (it keeps them in a job, doesn’t it?) a lot of the findings centre around language. The problem with language is its meanings are contestable. Just listing how many young people are called certain names is not really giving a full picture of how ‘homophobia’ works.
Even Johann himself acknowledges that the case study he uses- a 15 year old boy who jumped under a train after being the victim of ‘homophobic abuse’- may or may not have been ‘gay’.
‘I’ll tell you the story of just one of them. Jonathan Reynolds was a 15-year old boy from Bridgend in South Wales who was accused – accurately or not, we’ll never know – of being gay. He was yelled at for being a “faggot” and a “poof”.’
So this is not a story about ‘a gay child’ necessarily but about a boy who got teased, using ‘gay’ words as slurs.
It is also an example of the melodrama and emotive language Hari uses to hammer home his points that gay people are persecuted in our country. He tends to focus on the role of religions such as Christianity in this persecution, and in this context, faith schools.
‘Every week, I get emails from despairing gay kids who describe being thrown against lockers, scorned by their teachers if they complain, and – in some faith schools – told they will burn in Hell’.
He goes on (and on, and on)…
‘A few very mild proposals were made this week for how to change the attitudes behind this. They came from an excellent organization called Schools Out, which is run with a small grant from the tax-payer. They gave out a voluntary information pack in which they suggested that, to mark LGBT History Month, teachers acknowledge the existence of gay people in their lessons.’
So, the comments from Melanie Phillips about homosexuality being taught in schools in subjects like ‘gay maths’, came from news of this organisation’s work. But Hari made the story even more dramatic by his comment that:
‘The critics even whispered that gays want to “impose” sexuality on kids – with hints of the ugliest and oldest lie about gay men, that they are paedophiles.’
I didn’t get that message from Phillips’ article, but I admit I didn’t read it too closely. I think he has created a strange paradox here, where on one hand he is saying how wrong it is to impose sexuality on kids -that’s what paedophiles do. On the other hand he is calling kids ‘gay children’ -isn’t that, er, imposing sexuality on kids?
And then Hari really pisses me off:
‘Yet in one strange way, the current backlash is reassuring’ he says. ‘When I was a kid in the 1980s, these sentiments were so widespread that a law – Section 28 – was passed to resolve them, and the cowed critics were derided as “the loony left.” Today, the opinion polls show 80 percent of the British people support gay marriage, and the people offering these views are regarded as the loons. It’s worth pausing and saying to all the people who have been open to persuasion and have changed their minds on this question: thank you. It’s incredibly moving to see how many heterosexual people have rallied to the defence of gay people, and it’s a reminder that we will never go back now.’
Here Hari presents gay people as somehow more enlightened than heterosexual people, and suggests that straights need thanking for coming to ‘the defence of gay people’ and have ‘changed their minds’ on this question. Well Hari I was a ‘heterosexual’ or rather an undeveloped sexual kid in the 1980s, and I opposed Clause 28 then, not out of some sense of pity for the gays, but because I thought it represented state control and censorship, over all of our understandings of sexuality. And, now, in these ‘enlightened’ times, I actually oppose gay rights campaigners’ f ocus on gay marriage. I’d rather it didn’t become legal. I don’t expect to be patronised and told what I should think and do about ‘gay issues’ by ‘gay people’. I do not see a distinction along those lines between people. I can’t stress this enough.
Hari’s polemic is all about maintaining a ‘gay’ identity and ‘gay’ victim status and ‘gay’ virtue.
It is also all about maintaining the idea that sexuality is innate and fixed, natural.
‘These critics don’t appear to understand what homosexuality actually is. In every human society that has ever existed, and ever will, some 3 to 10 percent of the population has wanted to have sex with their own gender. This is a fixed and unchangeable reality. The only choice is whether you are pointlessly cruel to them, or accept their harmless difference. Homosexuality is “normal sexual behaviour”: it occurs wherever human societies exist. It is not engaged in by a majority, but using that logic, Jews and Muslims are “abnormal” in Britain too – an ugly and foolish claim.’
Most writers/researchers who I admire in the realm of sexuality, from Freud, to Foucault, to Mark Simpson and Camille Paglia, argue that in fact, the prevalence and practice of homosexuality in society is not a fixed and unchangeable reality at all, but a moveable fluid feast. I don’t use terms such as ‘normal’ and ‘abnormal’ when talking about sexual behaviour. But I know one thing about it – it changes. I think Hari relies on the idea of fixed, innate sexuality because it is easier to use that as a basis for the ‘gay’ identity and ‘gay rights’. If sexuality were fluid, why would people need to identify as gay at all? I don’t. But that doesn’t tell you anything about my desires, or my sex life.
I hope you are still with me. Analysing Hari is like walking through treacle. His next sticky situation is the ‘victim top trumps’ he plays with his favourite bete noir, ‘religious people’.
‘In order to justify their desire to discriminate against gay people’, writes Hari, ‘the few remaining homophobes have concocted a scenario where they are The Real Victims. They can say what they want, set up churches or mosques that preach what they want, and turn away gay people from their homes every day of the week if they so desire – and I would defend every one of those rights to the last ditch. There is only one thing they can’t do. They can’t choose to offer a service to the general public, and then turn people away on the basis of race or sexuality. They can’t put up de facto signs saying ‘No blacks, no Irish, no gays’ at their B&B.’
A key point about the B and B case in Bristol was that apparently, the gay couple concerned were not ‘barred’ but told they could not stay together in a double room, as an un-married couple. The case was won on the fact they were civilly partnered, and so were considered as a married couple would be. This is different from saying ‘no blacks, no Irish, no gays’.
Hari presents religious people as antiquated, prejudiced, ruled by the word of ‘God’ and not by the ‘morality’ of secular society.
‘Yes, I know your religious texts mandate bigotry against gay people. They also mandate slavery and stoning adulterers, and they laud a God who feeds small children to bears (see II Kings ii, 23-24). As secular morality has evolved, you have managed to overcome those beliefs. Here’s another that has to catch up. If you are really going to defend Biblical or Koranic literalism, you’ll end up as Stephen Green, head of the tiny Christian Voice sect, who argues that there is biblical authority for the legalisation of rape by husbands. So febrile is the atmosphere in Uganda that David Kato, the incredibly brave campaigner for gay equality, was just lynched as part of the hate-wave’
His mention of Kato’s death, as part of a ‘hate-wave’, lumps all anti-gay feelings together, and suggests by association, that it is the same religious bigotry that led to his murder that causes young people in the UK to be bullied. This is a broad-brush form of polemic, and one that only serves to further alienate people of faith from basic ‘liberal’ ideals of equality and understanding around sexualities and difference. It also, I think, belittles the seriousness of the current situation in Uganda, which involves specific socio-economic conditions.
Hari’s argument creates an ‘us and them’ environment, well, it reinforces it. I don’t consider myself as part of his ‘us’-fighting the evils of religion on behalf of my gay friends. I know some gay Christians. I used to be in a long-term relationship with one. Try working that out, Johann.
Having done with the anti-religion rhetoric, Johann goes back to his presentation of young queer people as beleagured and vulnerable:
‘But there is an even lower point in the homophobes’ rhetorical arsenal. Being subjected to bullying and violence as children and teenagers makes gay people unusually vulnerable to depression and despair. The homophobes then use that depression and despair to claim that homosexuality is inherently a miserable state – and we shouldn’t do anything that might “encourage” it. They create misery, and then use it as a pretext to create even more misery’.
But recent research has shown that young ‘gay’ people are no more likely to be depressed than their heterosexual (or bisexual-dooes Johann Hari believe bisexual people exist?) counterparts.
http://goodmenproject.com/boys/the-gay-kids-are-all-right
Finally Hari returns to the issue of the ‘gay agenda’ referred to by Phillips and Drax.
‘Yet Melanie Phillips, Richard Drax and the last raging band of homophobes are right about one thing. There is a “Gay Agenda.” They are only wrong about its contents. It has one item on the list, and one item only: to ensure that gay people are treated exactly the same as everybody else’.
And there’s the rub. On one hand he is saying gay people should be treated the same as everyone else, but this, on the other, is after he has written a whole article separating gay people from straight people, and accentuating their difference, their specialness, their vulnerability, even their virtue. He is asking us to treat gay people not equally but with even more compassion and care and possibly patronising concern than we do straight people. I think, that in fact, Hari is asking us to treat gay people like children.
‘Equality’ is a contentious issue. The gay marriage campaigns by Stonewall et al do not seek equality, but equal access to an unequal system. Marriage does not provide the same status and rights to all heterosexual people. Gay people joining in that institution would only be participating in that inequality.
I wanted that to be the end, but Hari has added a Post Script and so it looks like I must too:
Post Script-They Shoot Children Don’t They?
‘As a side-note, it’s especially galling to be accused of endangering children by Melanie Phillips, the journalist in Britain who has done more to recklessly endanger children than any other I can think of. She was the leading journalistic champion of the false claim that the MMR vaccine causes autism…I’d say persuading parents not to give their kids a life-saving vaccine based on the claims of a charlatan was a bigger “abuse of childhood” than teaching them that gay people exist, wouldn’t you?’
I am sure Phillips’ behaviour was abominable, but accusing her of ‘recklessly endangering children’ more than any other journalist in Britain is hyperbolic and over-emotive language to use. Again it paints an ‘us and them’ picture of ‘good versus evil’ ‘gay versus straight’ ‘liberal versus Christian’.
Johann Hari is an incredibly popular writer. He produces a blog where nobody is allowed to leave comments. He blocks people on twitter if they dare to challenge his views (I am proud to be in the ‘blocked by Hari’ club). He really does seem to see himself as a preacher of some sort. I am tired of listening to his sermons.
I think he should step down from the pulpit and step into the ring.
Am glad I’m not alone in thinking that this is an issue of school discipline. Children should NOT be bullied, whether it’s because they are gay/fat/ginger/nerdy or any other reason.
Divisive identity politics and wacky schemes to alter language will not help the kids that are being bullied NOW even if ( a huge ‘if’) the work in the future.
Still – he’s ever so earnest.
“Do children really identify themselves as gay? It paints a picture of a seven year old, living in a loft appartment in Manchester, sipping on a martini and checking out if he has any messages on his Gaydar. I didn’t think there was such a thing as ‘gay children’.”
Well, yeah. Maybe not at seven, but “childhood” goes on for another eleven years. What about kids identifying themselves as gay at, say, thirteen? Fourteen? Fifteen, like the kid in his story? I went to sixth-form with a few gay children. Admittedly, none of them had loft apartments, but they definitely liked other men’s willies.
“So this is not a story about ‘a gay child’ necessarily but about a boy who got teased, using ‘gay’ words as slurs.”
I don’t see what you’re getting at here. Homophobia has never been targeted at gays, it targets people perceived to be gay (same with religious prejudice, funnily enough, cf. EDL attacks on Hindu temples and Dr. Karl “I decide who is a Jew” Lueger). It’s a key feature of this particular prejudice, and Johann Hari definitely deserves a biscuit for acknowledging it.
“His next sticky situation is the ‘victim top trumps’ he plays with his favourite bete noir, ‘religious people’.”
Ah, see I always thought it was Postmodernists. But cheese on toast don’t get me started on Hari and religion.
you’re right alex. I was being a bit unfair in order to ‘hammer home’ my own points about Hari…
But I think he confuses ‘anti-gay/homophobic’ language with gay/queer young people.
He talks about ‘gay children’ then the only example he used was someone who we don’t know whether he was gay or not.
surely your missing the point … does it matter if this kid was gay or only perceived as gay? surely we should try to reduce the amount of bullying such a kid receives?
The real problem that I highlighted in the Indy is that we dont know how many of that 70% that Hari goes on about were bullied for being perceived as gay first or just fat, short, skinny or other reasons and gay second.
Hari is a master at the art of cherry picking items for a thesis no matter what the subject is and he does it so much that as ‘quiet riot girl’ rightly points out, its like walking in treacle.
good point Mike. The reasons for bullying are always complex and Hari has reduced it to ‘homophobia’ for his own ends.
Okay there are a few main points in your Hari problem which come up here which I’m going to identify:
1) You don’t like his style of writing
2) You disagree with the idea that children can have sexualities
3) You believe Hari is an essentialist
4) You disagree with essentialism
5) You think gay people are being patronised
So all in all, you don’t really mention anything about the content of his article, and any content you do try and criticise is all to do with theory more than anything, which is arguably not all that relevant, but I’ll come to that later.
Firstly, his style. Not exactly relevant to his politics all that much. He IS very passionate about gay issues, not all that surprisingly, and he writes with a lot of emotional rhetoric. You don’t like that, okay. But still kind of irrelevant and the attraction for many people is that it makes them feel like he cares. Early Butler is a convoluted nightmare to read, but that doesn’t mean people overlook the importance of her writing, does it? So that’s as far as making a strong case against Hari, it’s a pretty weak angle to go for.
Secondly, you don’t think children can have sexualities. You don’t give any reason for this other than you don’t feel like they can… because? Because they haven’t had sex? I know that you believe in some kind of behavioural definition of sexuality but that really doesn’t fly with me, or most people. Measurability does not equal truthfulness. Orientation can appear at really early ages, but it doesn’t have to be sexual. Children can, and often do, find themselves attracted to people of the same gender really young and do feel different because of it. You can choose to ignore all that anecdotal evidence if you want, in which case well done, you will have successfully proved that children -might- be completely a-sexual or a-romantic.
Now, even if it was somehow proved that children, up until the point they have sexual experience, are entirely asexual(/romantic/whatever), there is a semblance of sexual orientation. Which is something you don’t ascribe any importance to. If it doesn’t exist, in your eyes, then it doesn’t exist and is not a problem.
“So this is not a story about ‘a gay child’ necessarily but about a boy who got teased, using ‘gay’ words as slurs.”
It’s -still- homophobia and it’s -still- a problem, regardless of whether someone is gay or not or whether sexuality exists or not. I definitely agree that all bullying needs to be addressed and not just homophobic bullying, but you’re going to have a hard time stopping homophobic bulling unless you teach children that non-heterosexuality is okay. Just like if you want to stop ableist bullying, you need to teach children about disability. But the bullying argument is a separat discussion so I don’t want to put too much emphasis on that.
As for Hari being an essentialist… I think that you’re reading something you want to read into his article and I also think that’s it’s not important for this discussion. I’ve just read it again and I can’t find anything that looks like a philosophical argument, implicit or explicit, for essentialism? He’s saying that there are children who are being bullied for being gay, and that it needs to stop and that children should be educated in school in order for it to stop. He could have written that exact article being in favour of essentialism or social constructionism. The text you’ve quoted in order to “prove” his essentialist just says that there are people who have sex with people from the same gender, which is a “fixed and unchangeable reality” which, well, is true. That doesn’t say anything about how we conceptualise sexuality or whether it’s innate or constructed. People have sex with people from the same gender – don’t think you can contest that. He says it happens across all cultures and all historical periods… whiiiich is also true and also says nothing about the essentialist/constructionist argument. If ANYTHING that’s the argument used in favour of social constructionism – different forms of desire across different cultures. Whatever homosexuality is or isn’t, there are people perceived to be gay and people who identify as gay and, as such, are treated badly because of it. So to conclude that, I don’t think you can prove Hari to be essentialist or constructionist from what he’s written and I don’t think it’s significant to the argument.
The essentialist/constructionist debate is something I’ve spent a lot of time reading up on this semester so if you want me to suggest some reading or even post a couple of books over since I won’t need them for a while now then I’d be happy to.
Are gay people being patronised and “othered” here? That’s a difficult question to answer. Because on one hand you have an identified group (whatever you think about the nature of defining that group) being targeted and bullied/oppressed, and in order to stop people acting that way towards them, or people who appear to be part of that group, you do need to identify them as a group who should not be treated like that. Do you genuinely think that attempting to say to everyone that sexual orientation is a myth, it’s not a simple dichotomoy, everyone is the same etc etc will stop homophobic behaviour? That’s the other side of the coin. Because I, you, and many other people don’t believe there is any difference and the names we attribute to these different groups are problematic. But that’s not going to overcome prejudice. I think it was Gayatri Spivak (probably talking about racism I think instead of sexuality, it’s been a while since I read it) who said that sometimes you have to engage in a kind of “strategic essentialism” to overcome prejudice because there is no alternative even if it’s not a satisfactory answer. Maybe it comes down to simply whether you’re an ideological or utopian thinker or not. Is it doublethink to want equality but have to accept difference at the same time? Is there any other way?
But overall, I don’t think that your post here makes much sense or any kind of argument against what Hari is actually saying. There are children who are suffering because other children think that non-heterosexuality is bad and educating them will go a long way to solving that problem. If you have a problem with that, I’d rather you addressed that issue that stuff that I don’t think is really relevant. But maybe I’ve misinterpeted what you’ve posted somewhere along the way.
wow alex that’s a comment and a half.
Thanks for bothering to do so in such detail.
I am going to give this some thought and respond properly.
But one thing Id like to say is:
Hari doesn’t allow comments on his blog. So how can we discuss with HIM, the author of his article, the points he made.
I am a very very very open person, and as such, I get a lot of criticism thrown at me which I welcome.
But some people are less open and this enables them to be kind of shiny and uncriticised.
And then I even get criticised for criticising them!
But I am glad I do.
No problem! Arguing with you always feels like I’m putting my learnings to the test so I actually find it quite beneficial. UM yes I do agree that I find it pointless/bad when people don’t allow blog comments. Something which I do respect about you, even if I find myself disgreeing with 90% of what you say, ha, is that you do take and welcome criticism. Which a lot of people, whatever I think of them, don’t do.
I’ll try to be as objective as I can on this post especially after being slammed by the moderator in the Indy for giving as good as I get, but here goes.
On your first point I’m not too sure what you are saying is relevant or not between Hari or others in his style of writing. He writes what he does but irrespective of style most times its no better than the sort of propaganda we became used to from the wet liberals during Labours term in office, maxed out on rhetoric and short on objectivity.
On the issue of children’s sexuality most people if they are objective about it would agree that up to the age of say 11-15 there’s a learning process in operation and most if not all are completely uncertain of their sexuality. That being the case surely its better to let nature take its course and let sexuality evolve naturally than force either hetero-sexual or homo-sexual mantras on them. There’s certainly nothing wrong to teach biology and sexual evolution at say 13 as long as its in a strict medical sense for obvious reasons. However, at age 5 to probably 10, I very much doubt that any child has formed a sexual preference and it would be immoral to preach what is normal or right either way.
As far as patronising Gays is concerned, I’m sure some do feel patronised whilst others are militant but you’ll find that in all groups so where is this relevant. In fact the whole thrust of Haris article was about one minority group suffering bullying as opposed to bullying in general. This is no different to making a special case about a tribe of people in some third world country that are starving to death rather than including ALL people in the world that are starving to death.
Hari loses credibility and respect by excluding all others who are bullied for whatever reason and that is the major flaw in his article.
This is one of the best internet comments I have ever read – well done. I’m glad I ventured below the line. =)
Good afternoon.
Very enjoyable and though provoking blog.
More of a question than a comment really. You say you oppose gay rights campaigners focus on gay marriage? Why so?
Thanks in advance
Ab
Hi AB
Thanks.
well you see I don’t really support marriage at all. I don’t like it as an institution.
I think gay people who want marriage rights are trying to make themselves fit into the conservative values of married straight society. This may make them equal with married straight society, but that in itself is full of inequalities.
I don’t think it actually is a move to ‘equality’ overall. It makes some relationships have a higher status than others.
I support those who live outside the institutions of ‘normality’ and I think they should be allowed to continue to do so.
Gay people may feel like ‘second class citizens’ now. But if gay marriage happens, everyone who isn’t married or isn’t able to get married or live in a ‘normal couple’ will be treated like ‘second class citizens’.
Mark simpson says it much better than me:
http://www.marksimpson.com/blog/2009/12/08/gay-marriage-on-the-rocks-aint-no-surprise/
I’ll try and take your points one by one, Alex:
1) You don’t like his style of writing
True. I would go as far as to say I almost find it unreadable. I genuinely try to read his articles and then the words start to blur before my eyes. I had to force myself to read this one in chunks. I find Judith Butler easier to read and more engaging.
2) You disagree with the idea that children can have sexualities
No, I disagree with the idea that children have ‘sexual identities’. I said at the beginning that I agree with Freud that sexuality begins in early childhood if not before. BUt calling kids ‘gay children’ imposes an identity on them. I don’t think young people at sixth form are ‘children’. Most of them are over the age of consent, for example. A fifteen year old, I think of as a young person or teenager, not a ‘child’.
3) You believe Hari is an essentialist
I know he is.
He talks about ‘gay’ children. would it hurt him to say ‘LGBTQ children?’ No. But it would go against his beliefs that ‘gay’ is what people are. He sees sexuality as ‘fixed’ which is an essentialist position to take. I expect he thinks it is innate though he doesnt say that outright and youre right I shouldn’t assume.
4) You disagree with essentialism
Yes. I know what spivak means but I dont think people who take essentialist stances will drop them to incorporate a more complex view. if they did, wouldnt the gays have done that by now? If you read Anti-Gay by Mark Simpson you’d see how he and his colleagues were challenging the essentialism that has led to gay, monotonous, commercial culture.
It excludes bi and trans people at the very least.
5) You think gay people are being patronised
Yes I do. But I think people sometimes prefer that to having to face up to the complexity of life and the fact we are all alienated by sexual identity.
I don’t have much of a sexual identity. I might feel better if I said I was ‘gay’ or ‘lesbian’ or even ‘asexual’ or whatever. But I don’t want to do that. I accept my own confusion and I don’t accept that those who have a sense of a strong sexual identity should be told they are especially ‘oppressed’.
Yes kids get bullied using homophobic views/language. But bullying takes all sorts of aspects and getting rid of that language will not stop kids being cruel. I went to a school that was mainly black and asian kids, and there was a lot of racial conflict. But it couldn’t be ‘banned’. The conflict was real. Maybe kids could be taught that using your own sense of your own power to hurt others is wrong, without turning it into identity politics.
They could teach Lord of the Flies. It certainly taught me a thing or two.
Do give me some book references I love to learn!
Hope this is ok I am a bit stressed today but will carry on chatting if I think of anything else
XQRG
‘Treacle’ doesn’t begin to describe a glutinous paragraph like this:
‘These critics don’t appear to understand what homosexuality actually is. In every human society that has ever existed, and ever will, some 3 to 10 percent of the population has wanted to have sex with their own gender. This is a fixed and unchangeable reality. The only choice is whether you are pointlessly cruel to them, or accept their harmless difference. Homosexuality is “normal sexual behaviour”: it occurs wherever human societies exist. It is not engaged in by a majority, but using that logic, Jews and Muslims are “abnormal” in Britain too – an ugly and foolish claim.’
Giddy quicksands is better description of this kind of prose.
Hari himself doesn’t appear to ‘understand what homosexuality actually is’, but that doesn’t stop his finger-wagging of course. This isn’t even essentialism, this is gay fundamentalism. He’s just making (wildly unfounded) stuff up to support his prejudices and his self-righteousness:
‘In every human society that has ever existed, and ever will, some 3 to 10 percent of the population has wanted to have sex with their own gender.’
Every. Ever. Ever will. This is a tantrum masquerading as an argument. The 3-10 percent bit is a nice touch though – suggesting both some kind of scientific accuracy and also a little leeway, a little margin for error. He’s a reasonable man!
I’d love though to see his research. And his time-machine.
(Even in his own zany terms he’s tied himself up in knots here because he’s not talking about those ‘wanting to have sex with their own gender’. He’s talking about those having an EXCLUSIVE attraction to their own SEX.)
‘This is a fixed and unchangeable reality.’
Er, no, dear, it’s just WRONG.
You’re right Mark it is fundamentalism. Which in one sense is what makes it impossible to argue with. Just as it seems pointless when people like Richard Dawkins try and rationally argue with religious ‘zealouts’, so it seems futile to try and debate the finer points of Hari’s ‘sermons’.
But at least we have the pertinent point to make that being gay is not, or is not supposed to be, a religion. So the preaching and sanctimonious moralising cannot be justified the way religious people would justify it, according to spreading the word of God.
I made a comment to Patrick Strudwick today, on twatter, and he responded by saying he was going to ‘scrub himself with a scouring pad’. Because I and my views are so ‘unclean’ and they pollute his pure gay soul?
It’s insane.
Well I see that other people have got in first, so I shall keep it short.
What in hellfire’s name was the point of this blogpost?
It seems that your principle issue with Hari is that he dares to stick his neck out and not get caught up in equivocating. In the process of picking up on anything in there that you can jab your finger at you seem to spend a great deal of time missing the overarching point.
“It’s not 3-10%, it’s a fluid moveable feast!”
“um, well, 3-10% is pretty fluid, but moving on from that niggle, so what, we *shouldn’t* accept those who self identify as gay have a right to do so without being tormented, or *should* use homosexuality as an insult?”
“No, of course not!”
“Sooo… what’s *your* overarching point?”
“I don’t like Johann Hari!”
I mean, you are allowed to not like Johann Hari, but you haven’t half banged on about it for what seems to be no actual fucking reason.
Oh, and well done for that little bit of well-poisoning about Stonewall. “How can we trust what this charity has to say about gay abuse, if they report that it’s real then it keeps them in money!” That, there, is some class! Hey, why don’t we have a go at all the charities? I bet Shelter make a shit-ton of money out of claiming people are homeless. And Amnesty, well, if they were just making up stuff about people being tortured in jail, who’d ever know? Could be milking it, eh! Might as well throw the possibility that they’re fabricating research out there into the stratosphere without any evidence whatsoever to back it up. I mean, what’s the harm in that, right?
Again, that kind of stuff just seems needlessly nasty without there being much point to it.
McDuff- you have written out a made-up conversation between me and some anonymous critic (You?) which I am not going to try and respond to it’ll get ridiculous.
My point about Stonewall was- harsh- yes. But in my view, ‘homophobia’ is a hell of a lot more of a nebulous concept than ‘homelessness’. And Shelter do not make rash generalisations about what ‘homeless people’ are like, what their characteristics are as people.
I think the point of my post has been borne out by the other more considered responses to it. Read Mark Simpson’s comment about the 3-10% issue. In fact, maybe try reading his website
http://www.marksimpson.com It is better than what I have to say on these subjects.
Thanks for calling by anyway! I like to be challenged.
Yeah, you’re going to have to help me out on which part of the Mark Simpson post you linked to addressed the 3-10% statistic. I did a search to see if it pops up in the comments and, um, nope. And I really don’t feel like digging through someone’s entire website to find something that may or may not be there. Since you’re more familiar with it, perhaps you could post a link to the actual page where Mr Simpson addresses the numbers themselves and I’ll have a read.
I did get this delightful nugget from it, though:
So, when a charity or someone you don’t like makes “rash generalisations” about all gays it’s, like, totally shocking and appalling and you could never countenance it. But when Mark Simpson says it it’s just the most adorable and insightful thing EVER and we should all totally listen to what he has to say!
Not really following that, you know?
Regardless, whether or not “homophobia” is a more nebulous concept than “homelessness” is rather frighteningly besides the point. Injecting some lazy, well poisoning, utterly without merit speculation about whether or not a charity makes up research is appalling practice for a writer at any level. I’m sure the ADL “benefit” from anti-semitism too, but you’ve got to be have some kind of front to suggest this could lead to them making up statistics about anti-Jewish violence without a shred of evidence to suggest this is the case.
It’s not harsh: it’s lazy, unjustified, and more than a little sleazy. If you had any evidence to suggest this was the case you could present it and be as harsh as you wanted. Since you don’t, don’t mention it at all. Speculation like that is entirely without merit.
I meant Mark’s comment here on this discussion McDuff. Here’s the link:
http://graunwatch.wordpress.com/2011/01/28/think-of-the-gay-children/#comment-139
Mark can do no wrong with me it’s true McDuff, especially when it comes to trying to make sense of the kind of crap that people like Hari and Stonewall come out with. I have explained why I don’t accept their research findings in my original article above.
Your objections to the research are valid. Contestable, not particularly followed through, but valid. Your well-poisoning is not, at all. If you were a journalist you’d either be hauled over the coals for that (or the sub editors would be for letting it through) or you’d be writing for the Star or the Express or the News of the World or something.
Incidentally, if I’m following Mark’s comment rightly (I apologise for not realising it was the same Mark), he’s saying that Hari has committed a category error of sorts by using the 3-10% figure for “want to have sex with their own gender” category rather than the “are exclusively homosexual” figure that would put it more in line with Kinsey and the research since (3% being a pretty low lowball). It’s a valid criticism of sorts, but not entirely clear from the comment.
It may be that he’s not saying that, which would seem to be somewhat supported by the accusations of “making wildly unfounded things up”, in which case the only other thing I can grasp that he is saying is “I agree with you, Hari is a bad writer and is wrong.” Which is a point of view, but not necessarily one that carries the heft liable to convince me of anything. Perhaps he felt that it was a tame audience here, I don’t know. I’ve no particular beef with him, or for that matter with defending any particular set of numbers as they relate to homosexual behaviour or expression. I’m just curious what the fucking point of warbling about the numbers is.
Suppose that he’s wrong, and that it’s more like 45-30%. Or that it’s not and it’s 1%. So fucking what? The point is men wanting to stick their cocks in other men, be that exclusively or otherwise, is something that happens regularly, has happened regularly throughout history, and isn’t dirty or filthy or wrong, except in the “only if you’re doing it right” sense. Similarly for women who fancy a bit of fanny love. If you want to identify as Gay you should be able to do that without being chained to a fence and kicked to death. If you express yourself in a non-traditionally-masculine way we shouldn’t let rip the forces of gender policing to make you either reject your non-heteronormative expression or sink into a pit of depression. There are, furthermore, positive steps that we, as the alleged grownups in the room, could take to try and ameliorate this kind of thing. Even if Stonewall were lying their tits off, which again you have yet to show even a hint of any real justification for believing, it would still make the world a little bit better and brighter for all of us, even the straights, on account of how there wouldn’t be as many openly bigoted tosspots in it, and we should probably take those steps because it might, just might, save a couple of lives as a side effect of making everyone’s life nicer.
Have you got a problem with any of that in particular?
marks just pointing out that Hari has said 3-10% of people are ‘gay’ as if ‘gay’ means wanting to have sex with someone of the same sex as you, rather than only with someone of the same sex, and also as if 3-10% is based on research. It’s not. You cant do research on sexuality throughout the world, throught human history. so he has MADE THAT UP.
You can, though, do research on human sexuality in modern times and extrapolate based on a) documentary evidence from history, and b) nonhuman sexual behavior which indicates that homosexuality, like the poor, has been with us always. Which is what people, uh, do.
No, I admit it is not perfect and written in big flaming letters by the hands of God. But since, as you so rightly point out, we cannot go back in time and ask everyone “scuse me, sir, but do your trousers swing the other way, know what I mean?” it’s pretty much the best we’ve got.
You are aware, aren’t you, that there is a difference between an extrapolation based on limited evidence and making stuff up? That there are whole bodies of mathematics devoted to the act of working things out that are probably true even if we can never measure with 100% accuracy if we’re right or not? That there is not a binary switch where we know something or we do not, and that if we waited for that switch to be swotched before saying things with a reasonable degree of confidence we wouldn’t be saying much of anything? I find the act of saying “hah, you can’t know for superdoubleplus CERTAIN so you must be completely fibbing” to be somewhat lacking in robustness, as arguments go.
If Hari is making stuff up and putting ‘statistics’ to his made-up stuff it may indicate that a lot of what he says should be taken with some scepticism.
I am aware of extrapolation, yes McD.
But Hari has not done his maths, as Mark Pointed out. he hasnt even worked out what his variables are. If he has done or has referred to research he should link to it. I have linked to research in my piece. I even produced the bloody report Hari was obliquely referring to in his article. He did not link to the stonewall piece in his article.
Thats why I am open to criticism and Hari isnt. He is not clear about where he gets his information from. and we cant argue with him or ask him questions as he doesnt allow comments on his blog and he has blocked me on twitter.
so I get all the flak after he wrote a shit piece of journalism.
Um, poor you, I guess. Maybe if you didn’t engage in a bit of needless, sloppy quasi-slander while you were at it people might not be so keen to bring the flak
I guessed the upper bound would be the Kinsey report. I imagine he deserves some criticism for being less clear about that source than he could otherwise have been. Possibly not as much as you seem to be throwing at him, and possibly with a bit more nuance, but there you go. Certainly, criticising him for “making things up” when the numbers seem to be in line with where the research points just because he doesn’t have a time machine reeks of spitefulness as much as anything. It sounds as if you’d be positively amazed at how people actually work things out in real history departments around the country.
On the other hand, y’know, the impression that you give with this is that you’re basically throwing shit because you don’t like the man. Pick on Johann Hari because he wrote a piece saying people need to sit up and pay attention to homophobic bullying. What I’m getting from this is that you’re basically saying “well Hari got some numbers sort of maybe wrong and is a shit journalist and Stonewall might be making it up and anyway I dispute the meaning of the word homophobia so, basically, nuh uh, you can’t make me.”
And, well, OK, I guess, but also, um, what? Good for you? No offense or nuthin, but I’m not feeling the moral high ground here.
I dont want the moral high ground. It’s full anyway. Everyone else seems to be occupying it.
I am fine down here thanks.
I get your points and if you really need to make them again thats ok but I really understand your criticism of my article.
Thanks for your comments.
QRG: You’re being far too kind, as usual, to your commenters – one or two of whom seem to be deliberately missing the point so they can be sanctimoniously spiteful, nasty little shits. But then that’s the kind of person you usually find occupying the moral high ground.
It won’t make any difference to them of course, but for anyone else passing through I’m going to repost Saint Hari’s actual words. Again. As the obtuse commenters know very well, this isn’t a quibble about statistics or methodology. It’s an issue of shrill gay fundamentalism that presents itself as somehow scientific and reasonable when it’s anything but. It’s transhistorical, transcultural, ignorant and intolerant. Not to mention hypocritical.
‘These critics don’t appear to understand what homosexuality actually is. In every human society that has ever existed, and ever will, some 3 to 10 percent of the population has wanted to have sex with their own gender. This is a fixed and unchangeable reality.’
None of these loudly shouted ‘statements of fact’ are fact. And it’s possible to show that they are untrue just by mentioning one well-known example that in Classical Greece nearly all men ‘wanted to have sex with their own gender’. (Some say this is still the case in latter-day Greece.)
Human sexuality isn’t as ‘fixed’ and ‘unchangeable’ as the gayists want it to be.
What Hari and others represent is a gay imperialism, in which the past, the present and the future – and also childhood – are to be colonised by their white middle class late-twentieth century gayness.
A gayness that wants, ironically, to see itself as the ‘new black’.
So are you objecting because you think Hari’s emphasis on facts which you view to be dubious and arguable puts the overall argument that we should be prepared to stand up against messages in the media — and other parts of society — that it’s OK to mock kids for being gay, whether they are or are not? Or because you think it’s a sign that he’s completely overemphasising the problem and that we shouldn’t care about this kind of thing at all and it’s no big deal?
Because I happen to think that kind of thing is somewhat important. I dunno. Maybe throwing shit for the sake of throwing shit is what all the cool kids are doing these days and I’m just behind the times.
Mcduff- Mark Simpson has been challenging homophobia for years and years (ok hes not that old but for many years).
His website http://www.marksimpson.com will tell you more.
I don’t think he or I need to respond to your questions anymore as they are antagonistic and ridiculous.
Also I recommend you read the article by Rich Savin Williams I linked to in my post which discusses how homophobic bullying is indeed overstated.
Thanks.
I applaud QRG for going to the trouble of untangling the contradictions in Johann Hari’s article in such a precise, clear-headed way.
Because these kind of demands for cerain gay rights seem to spring from a type of compassionate liberalism, to argue against them often seems to be a wholly negative stance to take. It’s not.
I agree with QRG in that, since sexual identity is fluid not fixed, it would be harmful to spring to the defense of a child being called “poof etc.” on the grounds that he was experiencing “homophobic bullying”. What is that going to do to the childs burgeoning self-image at such a young age? The problem should be left to experienced teachers who should handle the problem with tact. Most adults find this subject bewilderingly difficult to get a handle on, how is a child going to fare? to even introduce the “issue” of homosexuality at schools can only be a distraction from what they are there to learn, and may actually cause discomfort for any kids who are unsure of themselves in that regard.
I often wonder, given the rise in divorces, if i had been brought up solely by my mum without any male role model at hand, would I have been prey to this idea that gayness is somehow in the genes? An over-identification with the mother or other female relative is a very likely explanation for why young lads (and I guess this applies vice versa to girls)start to question their sexual orientation. If the explanation “it’s all in the genes” is too easily proffered to school kids, there is a likelihood this would simply reinforce their doubts. They would deny it, or even be unaware they are doing it, but I think Johann Hari and other campaigners actually want more gays in the world. And why wouldn’t they? gives them a greater sense of security. I say this without malice. More and more kids are being brought up without a father, and it is surely this is the real problem.
Anyway QRG, you may not agree with all my points but I congratulate you for wading through the treacle.
Thanks Jack it is a sticky job but someones got to do it!