First things first: let get the obvious out of the way

Homosexuality is a phenomenon which has probably always existed and which has often polarized society into two camps: those who believe that there is something inherently bad/wrong/pathological/abnormal with homosexuality (probably most/all major religions) and those who emphatically disagree. This is normal. After all, the issue of homosexuality deals not only with sex as such, but also with societal norms, reproduction, children and family issues and, most importantly, with love. What could be more mysterious, more fascinating and more controversial than love?

I am beginning this article with these self-evident truisms not because I find them particularly interesting, but because we live in a weird time when only one of these two views gets objectively and calmly discussed, while the other point of view is immediately censored, denounced and condemned as some kind of phobia. Now, the word “phobia” can mean one of two things: aversion/hatred or fear/anxiety.

Does this make sense to you?

Why is it that an opinion, a point of view, can only be explained away and dismissed as being in itself pathological/irrational?

Let me ask you this: can you imagine that somebody might be critical of homosexuality as such (or of homosexual behavior/practices) without suffering from any kind of phobias or without hating anybody?

If not, please stop reading and turn the TV back on.

For everybody else, I submit that this phobia-canard (along with the no less stupid “closet homosexual in denial” label) is not conducive to an intelligent discussion. It is, however, great to shut down any critical analyses and “ad homineming” anybody who dares to ask the wrong questions.

Next, I also submit that there are those existing out there who do indeed feel an aversion/hatred/fear/anxiety towards homosexuals. These are the folks who feel their masculinity tremendously boosted when they get the chance to beat up (preferably in a group against one), humiliate or otherwise assault a homosexual. In my (admittedly entirely subjective) experience these are a minority. True, some homosexuals do elicit a strong sense of disgust from male heterosexuals, but these are typically those homosexuals who, far from being sequestered in some societal “closet” do the opposite: they ostentatiously flaunt their homosexuality with provocative make-up, dress or behavior. Again, in my (no less subjective) experience, these are also a minority among homosexuals. I think that there is a very natural explanation for the aversion these “in your face” homosexuals trigger in male heteros, and I will discuss it later below.

But for the time being, I would rather stay away from these circumstance-specific minority phenomena.

Next, let’s define the issue

In its entry for “homosexuality” Wikipedia writes “The longstanding consensus of the behavioral and social sciences and the health and mental health professions is that homosexuality per se is a normal and positive variation of human sexual orientation, and therefore not a mental disorder”.

This sentence deserves to be parsed very carefully, especially since it uses a lot of frankly vague terms.

For starters, what does “longstanding consensus” refer to? In 1973 the US American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from the DSM-II. The US American Psychological Association followed suit in 1975. This leads me to conclude that by “longstanding” Wikipedia means either 46 years or 44 years. In terms of human history, 44/46 years is close to instantaneous and hardly “longstanding”. There is also the issue of HOW and WHY these two associations decided to “de-pathologize” homosexuality. I will touch upon that later, and for the time being I will simply state that declaring a pathology that is henceforth to be considered as “normal” by means of a vote is hardly scientific.

Next, the statement above begs the question of what “homosexuality per se” is (as opposed to homosexuality “not per se” I suppose?). The intent here is clear: to decree that whatever co-morbidity (depression, suicide, substance abuse, violence, etc.) can be identified in homosexuality will always get explained away because it is not inherent to homosexuality per se. This is just another crude word-trick to suppress any discussion of homosexuality in the real world (as opposed to DSM-like manuals).

Then there is the notion of “normal and positive variation of human sexual orientation” which, of course, begs the question of what would qualify as an “abnormal and negative variation of human sexuality”. And to those who would say that I am being silly here, I would point out that while in the 1970s the issue was “just” homosexuality, we nowadays live in the society of LGBTQIAPK and that some even add an ominous + sign at the end of this abbreviation (LGBTQIAPK + ) just to be truly and totally “inclusive”. And here is the obvious fallacy: since homosexuality is a “normal and positive variation of human sexual orientation” then it must also be true for the entire LGBTQIAPK+ “constellation”. I submit that unless your IQ is way below room temperature you surely must realize that what we are dealing with here is a free for all in which any variation of human sexuality is declared “normal and positive”. QED (technically, this would be a syllogisic fallacy).

By the way – do you ever wonder what that small “+ ” sign at the end of LGBTQIAPK + really stands for? The answer depends on who you ask, of course, but if you ask Facebook in the UK, it’s no less that 71 (SEVENY ONE!!) genders (not sure if FB believes that UK users need more options than non-UK users…?). Turns out that this one small “+ ” is much bigger than the rest official acronym