f13.net

This might belong in politics but I'm not certain. I post over at theforce.net on their Star Wars forums sometimes. (I'm a nerd, I understand that.)

Basically someone posted and asked why there are no homosexuals in Star Wars besides Juhani in KOTOR.

This other guy then goes on a rant about how evil homosexuality is. Some of his key quotes:




Another quote:



The weirdest quote:



Someone asked him point blank about this and here was his response:



So, do any of you know of any good arguments, with facts backing them up that would be at all useful in this debate? I already told him that quoting the gynecologist in his town without saying what sources the gynecologist used is appealing to authority. He also says peer reviewed magazines shouldn't be used as sources because:

Kick their asses... Uwe Boll style.

(I'm probably not helping.  Sorry.)

Lol....

You're not serious, right?

First off --- There are intelligent opinions on each side of the subject. Looking for definitive answers though, at this point in time, is futile. Lets all just promote tolerance, claim complete ignorance, and just ignore the subject.

Secondly -- Star Wars.

My argument would be this: Star Wars is a product.  Sci-Fi + homosexuality doesn't sell well with the target demographic.  Since it's ultimately about $$$, there's no reason to add in an element that might decrease cashflow. 

That is actually the coherent response of most posters, me included. It's not there because it wouldn't sell basically.  However, this dude goes off on how evil homosexuality is. Hell, he has a post where he says if you have homosexuals in Star Wars you need to have an Aids-analog to make it realistic. And that having homosexuality in Star Wars is destroying the fairy-tale innocence of it.

  Arguing that Star Wars writers think homosexuality is wrong is ludicrous given the political nature of Hollywood.  These scripts and books aren't being written by people in Kansas.

The whole idea of this thread you're talking about repulses me on a fundamental level. I want to slap the shit out of everyone in it (even you Riggs).

And it's not so much because it's a debate about homosexuality so much as it is a debate about homosexuality and fucking STAR WARS. You silly motherfuckers need an intervention. All of you. The good along with the bad.

And I can't believe you actually brought it up here

 :mob:

George Lucas did more to destroy the childlike innocence of the story than having homosexuals ever could.

Frankly, this sounds like an agrument that isn't worth arguing about. Ignore the twat. He's arguing on the Interweb about how evil homosexuals have destroyed Star Wars. Short of wearing a vole costume while fucking a ferret (or being SirBruce), there's not much lower on the scale of social deviant you can get.

Lol. Well, i figured it was no worse than some of our other silly discussions we have on here, and some of you are awesome at formulating arguments. Since I posted it a mod stepped in and closed the thread. Heh. And actually, in the end it turned into purely a debate about homosexuality. And my presence I think led to it being closed because I wasn't being all nice and sugarcoating my responses to the guy. I called him a bigot and worse several times.

It always cracks me up when you start the homosexual debate with nerds. Most of these guys haven't even experienced sex and they go on and on and on about how evil homosexuality is. Not trying to generalize, but some people really need a reality check. If you spend most of your time on the internet, you should be reading alot; which in turn makes you more knowledgable. One would assume that you'd become more liberal, but it often seems to have the opposite effect.

A well, I remember oldskool "debates" with jock-types about homosexuality. Good times :) Often ending in physical threat, but that is to be expected from that demogrpahic.

No, nothing that would be useful in the debate because your opponent has no interest in facts.

Most of his arguments come straight from the fundie laden reparative therapy contingent. They're completely discredited, but I'm not spending an hour on psych-abstracts just to come up with evidence that any competent therapist knows anyway and will be ignored by the poster. But there's just no evidence for any of the stuff about gender role models or any of that stuff. It's all just nonsense.

There are no gay characters in Star Wars because they don't appeal to the 16-30 male demographic and Lucas' films are some of the purest appeals to commercialism one could imagine.

This guy hasn't had sex because he doesn't believe in premarital sex. In fact, one of the few times he got sidetracked it was to toss out statistics about how people who have premarital sex never have happy marriages and such...

I'm really sorry for exploding there.  :-D

I just had a cig. I feel better now.

It's just.....There's too many Star Wars threads as it is. I can't stand it anymore. And just thinking of what other sites talking about makes me flip out even more (I'm sure the Star Wars talk at F13 is moderate in comparison).

It doesn't help that he mentions that studies which actually disprove what he says and are reviewed according to the established standards of data get completely tossed out as credible because of the pro-homosexual agenda of the study's creators. That's some good old-fashioned myopia there.

Someone is needing some  :heart:

I'm not a fan of how sex is portrayed in pop-culture; as a commodity. And how popculture emphazises that; No sexlife? You fail at life! But denying yourself one of mother natures most beutiful things strikes me as very odd. But then again, I'm european, liberal and all that shit :-D

(sorry, cheap stab)

What do these Star Wars message boards talk about all day, do they just rehash the old movies ad nauseum?  I don't know how people could still come up with new topics to discuss.

As to the gay thing there is very little sex in Star Wars so most of the characters' orientations aren't actually known.  The only reason sex even gets mentioned in Star Wars is to explain where plot-advancing children come from which necessitates heterosexuality.  Unless they are clones!

They debate points of the movies, talk about the books, the rpgs, the toys, fan events, fan fiction, etc. I mostly go to the book threads because I'm curious what other people think about character X's future based on his actions in book Y, that kind of thing.

On Star Wars sex in general, there was a funny article I remember that pop-psychoanalyzed Lucas' immature understanding of sexuality through Attack of the Clones. It was highly amusing.

I'm not sure where it was, I think Salon but their search engine is horrid.

Just link him to here and be done with it.

http://www.venganza.org/

What a gay thread.

Oh well.  Some thoughts anyway, because sci-fi is a fun cover to discuss what the future might be.  I would expect homosexuality, if it existed during the Empire, to have been banned for no other reason than being different/unusual.  Note that the Empire showed extreme racial discrimination (against other literal races) and a mindset that was geared toward militarized and industrialized perfection, personified in Vader.  Art was not a priority.  Culture was not a priority.  I wouldn't expect luxury sex of any sort to be, either and that sort of government is one that thrives on finding people to victimize.

The other issue is what changes such a radical racial (literal) mixing would have.  How could you normalize sexual morals in a universe with thousands of species, each with their own view of it and all living in one country (the Republic, not the Empire)?  Since it seems most planets maintain distinct culture at least to some degree, then it would suggest there is tolerance if not acceptance of other groups.  Most standards of morality would be somewhat up for grabs, depending on where you were although the most basic rights would be supported to maintain a functional government (free speach of some sort, right to life, self determination, etc).

The last issue would be whether it would exist at all.  There is a cause (or several) for homosexuality; genes, gestation, the womb, environment, etc.  The technology is supremely advanced, to the point that it can be assumed that any parent who wanted to prevent homosexuality in their children could do so.  Some drug, laser wand, or whatever would fix it.  Technical medical issues like this could be waved off, because they usually are.  The main thrust of sci-fi isn't to debate whether we CAN do something, but whether we SHOULD.  The ficticious science assumes technical limitations are resolved.  Of more doubt is whether anyone at this point would care enough to want to do that, or whether they might even feel that such meddling was itself immoral. 

As to whether homosexuality is evil or not, that has nothing to do with Star Wars.  Sci-fi is fun in that it lets you rephrse issues with a more neutral context, or different context.  Like, how could you reconcile a prohibition against murder if you met a race who cannibalized their mate, Black Widow style?  What about issues of sexual discrimination with a race that has one sex inarguably superior to the other (as in, 40+ IQ points on average)? 

Of course, the real reason there are no homosexuals in SW is because Lucas didn't write them in.  Same reason there are no Arab looking people, or blacks (except the token black sidekick), or asians, etc.  But that makes for a much shorter discussion. 

Having Phantom Menace invade my rectum certainly caused me temporary incontinence, and I believe that second movie caused my sphincter to collapse.

The people in the adult industry refer to this as "slippage".

I have no comments on Star Wars that hasn't already been said.  On the other half:

Under the DSM-IV, homosexuality is not considered a disorder.  The US military recently got in a lot of trouble for classifying it as one (the document was written long ago and never updated) and they very quickly rewrote that section.

The American Psychiatric Association completely discredited conversion therapy (part of what Numtini briefly touched on) at their annual meeting in August.  (One article here (http://www.houstonvoice.com/2006/9-2/view/editorial/editor.cfm).)  No credible psychologist would back this poster's stance.

On a personal level, this is the type of ignorance and bigotry I try to fight against every day.  People like this only make me work harder.  Thanks for the motivation!

One thing that drove me crazy, was when I called him a bigot, he came back that I was the bigotted one because I refused to accept his disagreements with homosexuality.

Just derail the thread by asking about his thoughts on Luke and Leia's incestual relationship.

I will never look at the phrase "NGE" the same way again.

Male homosexuality *is* a great way to spread STDs. AIDs effects primarily needle sharers and gay men. While this isn't quite as true as it was in the 80s to early 90s it is still true. (At least in this country. In Africa it is totally different)

On the other hand female homosexuality is a great way *not* to spread STDs.

Of course the only way to get AIDs from a gay man is if you share a needle with him or fuck him..

Jedi's are celibate. And Darth Vader brought the galaxy to it's knees simply because he wanted to get his rocks off.

That's all I know.

Having sex with multiple partners is a great way to spread STDs. Sexuality is more than sex. This should have been taught in school, not an Internet forum.

Uh, Africa and Southeast Asia called. They want a word with you.

Wookies Live On Endor.

Maybe you can help me with something Margalis. I'm bad at mathematics.

From the global AIDS statistics 2005:

Adults living with AIDS: 36.3 Mio
Women living with AIDS: 17.3 Mio

Since 17,3 Mio people are roughly half of 36.3 Mio, are these women gay men or part of a large worldwide needle sharing ring?

It's an interesting question, so I asked Frank Miller :

"They're all whores."

Thanks, Frank.

I saw the title and thought you were asking for an intervention. I figured we could all get together and try to convince you that arguing about homosexuality in the Star Wars context was a "Bad choice" and that you needed to make better choices before you ruined your life.

Look, the dude's obsessed with sex. To avoid thinking about all the sex he's not getting, he spends all his time thinking about the sex other people are having and getting mad about it. It's classic projection. The only reason he's fixated on gays and no simply pre-marital sex is that gay sex can never be "okay" -- it's doubly bad. It's pre-marital sex that can never, ever, ever be made right through marriage.

Just ignore it. Normally I'm all in favor of arguing for the benefit of the peanut gallery, if not for this guy -- but it's not worth it.

Sounds like someone needs to rub one out.

To wookies.

Stupid. Fucking. Thread.

Homos in Star Wars? lolz

Seriously, why should anyone give a shit.

 :roffle:

For the same reason we have fanfic of Spock and Kirk having sweaty mansex while Harry Potter watches in a rabbit costume.

Because some motherfuckers just swing that way.

I hear Jabba tittyfucked Leia.

I heard it was the other way around.

Jedi's are formerly castrated as part of their training.  How else can you explain them having all these bad ass mental force powers like telekenesis and not going off Chevy Chase style (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082763/)?

You missed the part where I said "at least in the US, Africa is a different story."

It may not be politically correct but it is factual to say that in the US needle sharing and gay sex (yes, sexuality was the wrong term) spread AIDS far more than other practices. That doesn't mean I think gays need to go to hell or anything like that, those are just the facts. Especially in the mid 80s - mid 90s where AIDS = death, needle sharers and gay men made up something like 80% of AIDS sufferers.

Again there is no judgement attached to that, but it is what it is. Sharing needles and engaging in (male) gay sex are a lot more dangerous than heterosexual sex. It may also be that gay men tend to have more partners than hetersexuals, but I'm not sure I've ever seen concrete proof of that.

In most African countries the #1 way to contract AIDS is being born with it IIRC. So it is quite different over there.

Edit: Here is what I said, emphasis added:

Okay, here we go.

What do you mean there are no gay people in Star Wars?  C3PO is in it.  :rimshot:
What do you mean there are no gay people in Star Wars?  Jar Jar is in it. :rimshot:
What do you mean there are no gay people in Star Wars?  Hayden Christensen is in it. :rimshot:
It's Star Wars not Anal Wars. :rimshot:
It's Star Wars not Chocolate Starfish Wars. :rimshot:
Han is a smuggler, but not that kind. :rimshot:
Chewbacca may be hairy, but he's no bear. :rimshot:
It's Han and Leia, not Han and Steve. :rimshot:
Of course Star Wars had gay people in it, you're telling me Han and Chewie never got a little desperate out in space? :rimshot:
It's Jabba the Hutt, not Jabba the Butt. :rimshot:
Black people do this, white people do that. :rimshot:
Everything about Star Wars is gay, from two guys having a lightsabre duel to the clear dominant/submissive relationship between Han and Chewie. :rimshot:
They're building a Starbucks everywhere these days, next thing you know they'll have one on Hoth! :rimshot:

Woops. I take back my snarky comment then. Sorry. I think the retardicity of this thread seeped into me while I was reading it.

You haven't seen concrete proof of the rest either, have you? Heterosexual sex is not safer because its heterosexual sex, it's only safer in populations where the most dangerous diseases are largely endemic to homosexual sub-populations. I'm not an expert on AIDS nor an epidemiologist, but not only does it seem rational that a combination of youth promiscuity in the homosexual population plus a lack of a requirement to practice 'safe sex' from a birth control perspective put them at greater risk in the US, but studies also bear that out.

Actually kind of disturbing statistics:


http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/surveillance/resources/reports/2004report/table5a.htm (http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/surveillance/resources/reports/2004report/table5a.htm)

AIDS rates by exposure (http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/surveillance/basic.htm#exposure).  Further break downs can be found by scrolling up or down.

Current rates have heterosexual contact causing more instances than drug use by 43%.  Homosexual countact counts for 34% more than heterosexual.  Considering transmission is easier between males, their population had a head start, and comparing the cumulative cases, we're all screwed at this point.

(If this ends up in Politics then I'll be happy to go into a rant on the correlation of homophobia and very recent research on "straights" that engage in homosexual behavior and how that ties into HIV/AIDS.)

Sorry, trying to frame AIDS as still being a gay man's and druggie's disease is not helpful.


Edit: (And Oban posts part of my figures while I'm getting this all down)

So in 2004 a man who got AIDS is much more likely to gotten it from gay sex and a bit more likely to have gotten it from needle sharing. And a man who got AIDS before 2004 is that much more likely to have gotten it through one of those two means. 2004 data alone doesn't tell you that much anyway because you can't get AIDS twice. 400k gay men in this country all ready have AIDS, the rates for new infection are going to be lower if for no other reason than that the pool is largely saturated.

According to your data gay sex and needle sharing are far and away the best ways to contract AIDS historically in the US, and are still among the best ways.

I'm not trying frame it as anything other than what it is. There is no need to politicize this. AIDS is not a 'gay disease' or a 'druggie disease' but gay sex and needle sharing are what allowed it to balloon in this country. How many of the women getting AIDS now got it from a man who got it from sharing an needle or having gay sex?

The rest of the population is catching up but refusal to acknowledge the major causes of the spread of AIDS actually kills people and HAS killed people. When the AIDS epidemic started instead of spending our money on generic 'wear a condom' campaigns we probably could have saved a lot of lives by targeting more specifically the communities where AIDS incubated and spread out from. Less money on trying to convince Jimmy to wear a condom while fucking Sally and more money spent on needle exchange programs and getting Jimmy not to fuck Timmy immediately after fucking Bradly.

The spread of disease is not egalitarian, and treating it like it is is counterproductive. We scared a bunch of people into thinking that playing basketball with Magic Johnson would give them AIDS while in large part doing nothing to stop the spread of AIDS among needle sharers and gay men. We essentially allowed AIDS to spread out of political correctness.

Saying that the vast majority of AIDS sufferers have engaged in gay sex or needle sharing is not homophobic, its a fact. Facts aren't  homophobic.

Again I'm not saying "damn those awful gays for speading AIDS!!!" But it is quite proper to point out that the AIDS epedemic was largely gay and needle-sharing when it began and refusal to acknowledge that killed people.

Obviously you are right if you ignore every country except the US (not only Africa), which I find interesting. I used the European statistiscs (being European and all), where 58% of the new AIDS patients aquired it through heterosexual contact and only 31% were homsoexual or bisexual men. Drug injections only accounted for 9%.

It still seems to be an US phenomenon and its different here. Which of course begs the question why US numbers are so different. But thats a question thats difficult to answer without further unbiased data. Could be skewed data to prove a point (unlikely), could be an effect of certain biases in US culture.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, WAIT.

Hold up here :  Are you telling me I've been hearing 'Eurofag' on these boards for years and it turns out that America is MORE GAY than us ?

 :-o

I'd call that a radical interpretation of the text.

Nerds? Sorry to burst this particular bubble for you mate, but have you noticed what forum we're on? Geekdom's not confined soley to Star Wars/Trek guys. Geekdom's a wide-ranging thing, and lots of "geeks" actually are just normal guys with families. And no, I don't also post/lurk on theforce.net  :-P

As for the "childlike innocence" of Star Wars... I have only this to say.

or show.

show.

(http://img82.imageshack.us/img82/2802/actionfigure1ji.jpg)

There's a difference between geeks and nerds. While the guy arguing about gay people in Star Wars is just a dork.

It's less about whether homosexuals or heterosexuals are to blame for the spread of HIV (or responsible, or whatever).  It's that men are effectively plague dogs when it comes to the virus.  Sperm is packed with the virus, and whichever end it winds up being deposited in is where the virus is going to go.  "Pitchers" have a harder time getting infected, although it of course can occur.  Add to that that anal sex increases the risk multiple times over vaginal sex.  What got the virus going in the US was homosexual sex in communities where promiscuous sex was accepted culture; in such groups the virus is going to spread very, very quickly.  It wasn't that all gays contributed to the problem, just mainly these communities with these practices, and lack of condom use.  Not that there was much reason to, at the time.  It's not like they could get pregnant. 

Azazel:  that pic is teh win.

I sincerely doubt that is real, it probably came out of an SA or FARK photoshop thread.

Yes, but gay in a manly way.  Tough cowboy sex rather than beret-wearing fairy sex.  More Rock Hudson, less Graham Norton.

Historically, yes.  This isn't 1990 anymore.  There is a lot of shoulda, coulda, didn't that led to AIDS blooming in certain populations in America that got swept under the rug because of a perception of them being undesirables.

We are not at that point anymore.  Trying to treat this disease in 2006 the same way we should have in the '80s and '90s will not stop its spread.  The heterosexual population is now at the point the homosexual population was back then, yet you want to focus on back then.

That is about as effective as AW's and Sinji's graphs and arguments that look only at total population but completely ignore churn.  Numbers are important, but the derivatives give more vital information in predicting the future.

You can focus on what we should have done, I choose to focus on what needs to be done now.  What we need is to focus on is everyone regardless of category.  We can target the message within sub-cultures, but we cannot afford to ignore any group because this now affects the entire population.  Otherwise in a few decades we will end up looking exactly like the rest of the world in our statistics.

[I am not ignoring where it came from, nor the failures this country has done to address it.  I have several friends with AIDS, thank you.  I am interested in preventing the rest of them from being at risk as well.]

You want to minimize your risk of AIDS? Become a non drug-using lesbian. Lowest risk category. :)

Fixed that for you.  It ain't a lot of fun though.  :-P

Nah. It's damn difficult even for nympho lesbians to get it. I doubt celibacy buys you that much, given the transmission rates I've seen.  Now, porno-lesbians with the long fingernails -- no telling. :)

There's always the monestary.


Oh right, I forgot about all the gay sex there... yeah, you're out of luck.

Um, no thanks.  You can keep them.

Gladly.

Can I keep them after you done?

If you don't mind sloppy seconds.

Are we still talking about fingernails?  :evil:

(http://skyjuju166.canalblog.com/images/t-yoda_zoolofilo.jpg)

Anyone know when the book "Luke Has Two Daddies: 10th Anniversary Edition" is coming out in paperback?

That's just awesome.