The Sexual Shame of the Anti-Gay

[Cross-posted at Our Big Gayborhood]

Last week, Ed Brayton posted an apt and amusing piece on The Incredible Power of the Gay.

In response to "former homosexual" Michael Glatze, who wrote in WorldNetDaily that "The pressure to succumb to homosexual desires is also immense...I tell people all the time that the seduction of homosexuality is so powerful," Ed responded:

"Do you detect a bit of projection there? I certainly do. I don't doubt for a moment that Michael Glatze truly sees homosexual 'desires' as being that powerful and that seductive, for one simple reason: He's homosexual. It is his nature to be gay, that is what he is, and he sees it as an all-powerful temptation because one's true nature does not simply go away no matter how hard you try to convince yourself that you're straight.

But for those who aren't gay, this is all a bunch of melodramatic nonsense. If The Gay were that all powerful and magnetic, surely I should have been tempted by now...."

The argument that gay urges are very seductive, even for heterosexuals, is always bizarre to me. Yet, I've seen anti-gays make this argument all the damn time. I would normally describe this phenomenon of heterosexuals explaining the LGBT experience as something akin to hetsplaining, but whether they're detailing the incredible allure of the homosexual lifestyle or telling gay people to just repress their dangerous desires, anti-gays often write as thought they have personal, intimate knowledge of such sexual repression.

And, I suppose, in some ways they do. Whether or not they're closet cases, many anti-gays demonstrate an uncomfortable relationship with the use of their bodies for sexual pleasure. Sex, they will publicly and awkwardly tell you, is "coitus" and for reproductive purposes only. They will erroneously tell us that our genitalia were "designed" only for reproduction, you know, despite the fact that the only function of the clitoris is pleasure. Any non-reproductive use of the genitals, to many, is cause for shame even though to seek sexual pleasure is, for many humans, a natural and regular occurrence.

So, while the "pressure to succumb to homosexual desires" is not, actually, at all immense for those who are heterosexual, sadly, many heterosexual anti-gays nod their heads in agreement anyway, knowing exactly what it means to negate a part of themselves.