Are gay men an oppressed group today in the West? - Of course not lmao

[Joan Nyan]

As much as I hate to agree with anything SJWs say, they consider gay men to be privileged and not oppressed anymore. I think they're basically right, and that it's a good thing too. Unless you're an SJW yourself and you make your whole identity about victimhood, not being oppressed should be the goal. As far as I can tell, we finished the fight, let's move on with our privileged, shitlord lives.

 

[Ntwadumela]

For the most part they're not oppressed anymore in almost all 1st world countries.
3rd world countries on the other hand? Almost zero rights.
However the question asked for Western nations, so yes they're "privileged" now.
I hate that word.

 

[BT 075]

Gay men are a pretty wealthy demographic. Though they have the option of marriage and can now have a family if they so desire, most of them don't have children of their own, or only do so later in life. As a result, a lot of them have better financial means then their straight counterparts.

Not having to pay for costly divorces, children's college tuition, you name it, it makes them pretty comfortable. They may be discriminated against if they apply to work on a conservative school or whatever, but nine of ten times you cannot really tell who is gay or who isn't unless you have been around them for a longer time. Trick is not to come across as a flaming faggot during your job interview, and there won't be much that holds you back.

I would say that even in various third world countries, gays don't have it too bad. In the Philippines for example, a lot of families have a "rich gay uncle", an older male relative who never married, never had kids and was able to have a pretty decent career as a hairdresser or stylist or whatever it is gay people do. Met a guy last June who sends all his brother's kids to school and pays for their rent and even wedding ceremonies while he works his ass off. He's gay, and he told me he can afford it.

 

[Joan Nyan]

Gay men are a pretty wealthy demographic. Though they have the option of marriage and can now have a family if they so desire, most of them don't have children of their own, or only do so later in life. As a result, a lot of them have better financial means then their straight counterparts.

Some studies show that gay men have a slightly higher IQ on average which may also help them be better off.

 

[Pikimon]

Meh, it depends on where in the West. Like if we're talking urban cities like Los Angeles and New York, then gay men don't have much to worry about. Now if we're talking about rural Alabama or Texas then there are legitimate dangers to being openly gay.

Still hell of a lot better than being gay in Iran or Sudan

 

[polonium]

"Privileged" is such a loaded term, and a crock of shit to boot. However I'd agree that "not actively opressed" mostly fits the bill HOWEVER you can still encounter individuals (and groups) who do take offence and would be a danger to life and limb.

 

[AnOminous]

As much as I hate to agree with anything SJWs say, they consider gay men to be privileged and not oppressed anymore.

Not really. It's not like the people who commit actual hate crimes give a shit what SJWs think. It's still blacks, Jews and gays who are targeted and are the three groups most likely to be victims of violent hate crimes where race, religion, or sexuality is the motivation. Gay men are generally not the victims of "microaggression" bullshit but actual violent attacks.

 

[I'm With Chris]

I actually like the gays.

 

[Null]

Probably not any more difficult than the average human life, depending on where you live. Around more traditional religious conservatives you might be run elevated risk of assault. I've never treated someone differently for being gay.

 

[AnOminous]

Probably not any more difficult than the average human life, depending on where you live. Around more traditional religious conservatives you might be run elevated risk of assault. I've never treated someone differently for being gay.

I don't think traditionally religious people are that much more likely to be violent, if at all. Most of the people who commit actual hate crimes, i.e. go out and fag bash or drag a black guy behind their car or whatever, are low life degenerates, drunks, and meth freaks. People who do all kinds of dumb shit.

The people who killed Matthew Shepard, for instance, were meth freaks.

 

[Joan Nyan]

I don't think traditionally religious people are that much more likely to be violent, if at all.

It depends what religion we're talking about. Fundamentalist Christians hold signs and yell "God Hates Fags", fundamentalist Muslims hold guns and yell "Allahu Akbar"

 

[Positron]

Gay men are as oppressed as women are. i.e. not at all.

 

[Jubileus]

Today? I'm not feeling terribly oppressed. Gay men are a constituency that is pandered to in politics and society, that indicates a level of leverage if not out-and-out privilege I guess (we're in the First World, we're all privileged fucks here, get over it people). Overall, a lot has changed in the 20 years since my awkward gay teening:

• Kids now come out of the closet for asspats rather than hide in the closet to avoid ass kickings.
• An expansion of legal recognition has occurred rather than the contraction of it my early/teenage years saw (Bowers, DOMA, DADT). A potential President Clinton now sees pandering to us as advantageous to win an election rather than pandering against us.
• The great gay bugaboo, HIV, isn't cured but it isn't the death sentence it was then either. Large amounts of financial resources are committed to making it manageable, a far sight different from the lethal of yesteryear.

That's not to say things are rosy and perfect for everybody, but frankly anybody expecting that is a fucking moron since that isn't how human beings work. Despite the saturation of homosexual men in Hollywood (both behind and in front of the camera), you still can't be openly gay and be a leading man (talk about a poster child for "internalized homophobia", it's good ol' Progressive Hollywood that's the worst). You still can get your ass kicked for making a pass at the wrong guy (the advent of online dating has been a godsend there, though). Westboro are still up to their shenanigans, and we're still having to stamp out stupid shit like involuntary commitment for conversion therapy in some places. Gay men are still about 5x as prone to trying to off themselves than their straight counterparts, but I think the bundle of neuroses that are the T in LGBT are part of that stat so it's probably much less now.

But, I can be openly gay and own property without it being seized or burnt down by a mob. I can vote, and I get actively pandered to for my vote (pandered to brazenly and somewhat incorrectly, but hey). There's an entire subset of marketing that now caters to what's ostensibly gay interests (although if they keep it up with some of those underwear commercials -- because gay men need magic gay underwear much like Mormons do, I guess, expect much sluttier -- I may start discussing needin' mah vapours, Miss Violet). My partner and I can share power of attorney for each other, stand to inherit from each other (don't tell him that, please, I like living), and even be on each other's medical plans. All the assholes who regularly threatened to kick my ass 20 years ago now wear stupid rainbow overlays on their Facebook profile photo every time something gay related is major news (although offer a simple apology for the abject terror they put me through? Hah, no).

So, are gay men, as a group, oppressed in the West today? Nah. Shitty things can happen to anybody, we just have some additional options for shitty things happening, but it's not really some systemic thing anymore.

 

[idosometimes]

If you mean gay as public image of gay (white young good looking guys), then no. You need to go outside the public image of gay to find oppression. Black gays have HIV because their supposed racial and sexual-orientational communities don't support them. Religion plays a big role. If you are a black and gay in many places, it is still like the 1960s. You are on the outside. The only access to sexual partners is older men who are more likely to share HIV with you. The gay "community" also is joining in on this oppression. "No blacks" attitude is common (but who wants to get HIV?)

Another issue is in group oppression. Gays hate old people (25+) and ugly people. If you are a faggot, but not a liberal faggot, you will be accused of "internalized homophobia." If you are non-"GSM", you will be accused of being a homophobe for not always agreeing witht he gays.

(NERB, SJWs view mainstream gays as privileged because they see anyone less oppressed as being not oppressed. Like that sign at the amusement park, you must be this oppressed to enter.)

 

[Ginger Piglet]

Whether a gay man is oppressed in the West is a function of his race and wealth and location.

A rich white gay man living in Hampstead or Brighton or New York is not very oppressed at all.

A poor black or Asian (i.e. Indian, Pakistani, Bengali) gay man living in Tower Hamlets or Handsworth or Bradford or Dog's Butt, Alabama is likely to be oppressed. Amongst what in Britain are called "BME" (black and minority ethnic) communities, homosexuality is seen as a plot by whitey to unmanlify (?) their people, depopulate black and asian and Muslim communities and countries by restricting their breeding numbers or to damn people to Hell because God has forbidden the gay. The whole "Muslim patrol" harassing gay people in Whitechapel was depressingly recent.

Needless to say, when called out on this, they (and many SJWs for that matter) immediately start bouncing and squeaking about RACISM. I honestly have seen people who would be called SJWs nowadays, when I was at university, who were openly and flamboyantly gay, slipping a disc to Buju Banton's dancehall "classic" Boom Bye Bye (Shoot the Battyman Dead) because it's not their place to interfere with others' cultures.

Similarly, there are traditional working class communities in Britain in which you'll probably get a barracking and/or a beating for engaging in PDAs with your homosexual partner. Sid the Sexist's sneering at "homs" is depressingly common in the North East, even though it is the current year.

 

[feedtheoctopus]

Depends on where they are.

Small town Alabama? Prepare to get treated like shit by everyone you meet. New York? Unless you're from a super religious family nobody gives a shit what you do.

 

[polonium]

Similarly, there are traditional working class communities in Britain in which you'll probably get a barracking and/or a beating for engaging in PDAs with your homosexual partner. Sid the Sexist's sneering at "homs" is depressingly common in the North East, even though it is the current year.

Totally agree with this.
I'm from a working class background and I currently work in an industry where I can't name a single other person I know who is gay, and in fact one of the people I work with daily, who I like and consider a friend, was recounting a horrifically homophobic story to me this week about his encounter with a hairdresser dude and how he's never going back there because he doesn't want some pansy cutting his hair.

There's basically no way I can be out at work and while that isn't "oppressing" me, and it isn't relevant to my job anyway, it's annoying to have to basically pretend to be single if I want to turn up to work events.

 

[Big_Boss]

I live in a northern state where there's a lot of homophobes, more than you would think. A high school near my hometown wouldn't let the band play a Queen song because Freddie was bi, for example. I found that really fucking stupid and it shocked me.

It's definitely a lot better than it was but it's still ridiculous.

 

[Picklepower]

They are still viewed as degenerate by alot of people so they don't exactly have it easy, it would be easier to be straight in society. Yeah you hear about tolerance but they are still in a separate group and wont easily integrate.

 

[Fact Checker Rafe]

Society issues shouldn't be discussed without making use of data, especially when there are plenty of relevant data around.

First things first: Data shows gay men are the top victims of hate crimes in the US and the broader Western world.

Data from the Netherlands indicates gay men are much more likely to experience workplace and street harassment than lesbians, and data from France shows that teenage homelessness is a much bigger issue for gay men than for lesbians (86% of homeless LGBT youth in that country are male). In the US, gay men are also more likely victims of verbal and physical harassment than related groups. If gay men aren't oppressed, then neither are other LGBT groups. Or maybe any other group.

Anti-gay crimes seldom reach national news; unless the crime is too grotesque (like the Orlando massacre was), coverage will be confined to local media or the gay press. That, combined with increased media representation of gay men, is perhaps what is driving perceptions that gay men are now very mainstream. But low coverage of anti-gay abuse doesn't mean it isn't happening. The media (especially national media) is not a perfect mirror to social reality. The media is guided by narratives, not by facts. For example, media coverage of police shootings of civilians has given many the impression that the overwhelming majority of their victims are Black - but they aren't, in fact a plurality is White. However, due to the fact that the Black community has, via a prominent movement, the Black Lives Matter, organized to bring attention to Black victims, the media follows behind and gives them a lot of attention compared to victims of other races.

Gay groups have not fought as hard to campaign against hate crimes and bring attention to particular incidents of anti-gay violence; so far, they have been pursuing the perhaps easier route of reforming law to achieve legal equality - fighting for marriage equality, for example; now it's the trans bathroom thing. But even when it comes to legal rights, there are many states where sexual orientation is not as protected as religion or race; where it is still legal to be fired for your sexual orientation, but not your race and religion.

Secondly, the issue of gay income doesn't necessarily say much about how accepted gay men are. Jews have been a historically prosperous people in Christendom and in Muslim countries, but that doesn't mean they haven't been persecuted. In fact, the greatest campaign of persecution waged against the Jews - in 1930-1940s Germany, as we all know - was grounded in part on fears that Jews were too successful, that they were using their extreme wealth and social influence to sabotage the Aryan race. Even today, it's not hard to find minority groups scattered throughout the world that are rich but still undergo bouts of violence and persecution - the Chinese in southeast Asia, for example; perhaps Muslims in Sri Lanka count, too. So while it is true that minority underachievement is sometimes linked with prejudice, either as consequence or as cause thereof, that doesn't mean overachievement protects against bias. Sometimes success provokes hatred, too - sometimes, when a mistrusted group succeeds, there arise suspicions that they're abusing their influence to sabotage the majority group, corrupt its morals, etc. Jews have been a target of these theories, and so have gay men.

Gay men are a curious target for this specific sort of hatred, as social data indicates they're not a very wealthy group at all. Here are some screen caps that I just took with data on this subject. Countries are the United States, France, and Australia. The differences are small, but as anyone can see, gay men are more often than not overrepresented in the low income category.

Furthermore, while it is true that wealth can protect some individuals of marginalized groups against prejudice (especially people from racial groups that are stereotyped as dumber or lazier than average), many of the negative stereotypes associated with gay men - mental illness, the sex machine, the child molester, the sophisticated but perverted effete - are such that they're not all softened by material success; in fact, success might sometimes inflame perceptions of the danger that gay men allegedly pose. There's in fact recent anecdotal evidence that even wealthy, white, gay male couples in moderate and liberal states can be the target of street beatings, stabbings, as well as hysterical campaigns of harassment on the part of their equally rich neighbors.

Perverts are seen negatively regardless of their apparent well-adjustment. In fact, hysterias about perverts frequently take aim at cultural and political elites. (See the hysteria in Britain about VIP child molesters, which is based mostly on conspiracy theories). So, when homosexuality is seen as a perversion, as a dangerous mental illness that is intent on spreading among young people and corrupting them, people will not react better to it just because the 'pervert' in question has light skin, a sophisticated taste in clothes, or a good job.