on@hpda.UUCP (Owen Rowley) (08/09/85)
*** Replace this line with your opinion .. please! ***
Dear Netland
So here we are , on a national network that connects thousands of
computer professionals and there are a handfull of people who contribute
to this newsgroup. I don't count Ken Arndt because he doesn't contribute
he har*ass*es, and annoys but he doesn't contribute. For the most part
I enjoy the "jason" material but its not really substantive. Occasionally I
see factual reportage of parades, or film fests, or Aids research, but
I dont find dialog or anything resembling real discussion of the issues
that face Gay people living in America today. Obviously the vast majority
of subscribers to this news group are just readers, I guess this is standard
but it would seem to me that we are missing an opportunity here to take
advantage of a valuable resource. Often two or more days to go by with no
postings at all!! Often I need to check some newsgroup that is guaranteed
daily postings (like net.jokes or net.bizarre) to determine if my notes
feed has dried up or what. Look in net.women or net.religion and you will
find a whole different kind of ballgame, but here in net.motss you hardly
ever see responses to the few articles that do offer informative material
worthy of discussion. Too often when a topic starts up , like the recent
controversy over children and the state control of Gay peoples right to
foster parent, I see replies that consist of whining and bitching.
Perhaps the name motss is too obtuse and there are hundreds of Gay users
out there that don't know it exists on the net.... in which case we need
to get the word out...
Perhaps there just aren't that many Gay users out there, but I doubt that
More than likely its a reflection of closeted attitudes and unwillingness
to be known as Gay in the workplace. We could refer to this special brand
of attitude as *net*itude. And who says you gotta be gay to post to motss
Is Ken Arndt the only non gay who reads this newsgroup? I suspect that there
are plenty of people reading this newsgroup who are undecided about their
sexuality or who would be enriched by open disscusson of what it is to be
Gay in America today.
Also from the geographical standpoint one might surmise that Gay people
only exist in Boston, and california. ( who knows mayby its true) Though
I suspect that once again this apparently uneven distribution reflects
closeted attitudes.
I think that it would be valuable for ROM's (Read Only MOTSS) to be able
to have access to a newsgroup with informative discussion on the many aspects
of what it means to be Gay and out of the Closet. It would also be valuable
for non gay readers to hear directly from us about the issues that face us.
I Don't agree with Ken Arndt on practicly anything he says , and I definitly
don't agree with his method or style. But I think that Ken Arndt shows us
an accurate portrayal of the kind of bigotry and missinformed public that
we are gonna have to learn to deal with if we are to live our lives openly
and out of the closet. The slurs and stereotypes that Ken throws around are
not the product of his stagnant imagination, they are deeply ingrained in
our cultural experience. Those of us who are priveleged to live in areas
with a well developed Gay press know that we are involved in a struggle for
our lives that will only get more difficult before it gets better. We don't
need Ken Arndt to tell us that large segments of American Society would like
us all to crawl back into our closets and die from our "so called perverted"
sexual practises. And it doesn't take a brilliant mind to deduce that before
the AIDS crises is over there are gonna be a whole lot of Ken Clones blaming
Gay people for inflicting AIDS on the nongay population. Unfortunatly the
american public does not get the in depth coverage of the latest AIDS research
nor does it get accurate reporting about the fact that AIDS is epidemic amongst
some hetero populations in Africa.
This network is a new Media, perhaps the only media where the individual has
the opportunity to adress everyone else and still maintain a low profile.
Even if you are so closeted that you feel you cannot reveal yourself at your
workplace you can ask someone who posts regularly to forward your anonymous
opinion.(no guarantees I guess but it might be your first opening to becoming
a complete human being) If you have root access its no problem to create an
anonymous acct to post with. Computer networks are marvelously anonymous
creatures in themselves in that you can reach deep levels of communication
without having to risk close personal contact. I used several BBS systems
here in the Bay area when I was first coming out and it provided me with
many hours of theraputic contact with others without ever once having to reveal
my self to any one on a personal level. After getting used to myself as a Gay
identified person on the BBS's for six months it was a relativly easy transitionto integrate myself back into the world of the living.
To get back to my main point....there are a lot of things we could be discussinghere that could provide valuable resources for us all, Gay and non Gay alike.
I know that this letter is pretty long as it is but I would like to introduce
a topic that is important to me. (just to get it going OK)
I have taken care in this posting to avoid using the word straight...
For one thing I'm not bent or broken (least i wasn't last time I looked)
and since I'm writing I will use the terms I like which are Gay and non-Gay.
Net.women has had a lively discussionabout pronouns and gender identification
and I think that the concept of labeling by sexual preference fits right in
to all the points being made over there on that subject. perhaps you might
have some interesting insight about how words and labels... like Gay and Fag
or Queer etc etc... create the reality of our situations. Some Gay men
habitually refer to each other as "she" or as "girls"..
Can we talk????
well enough for now .. Thanx for reading this far, and I hope that this will
all be taken in a positive manner.
LUX .. on
Owen Rowley
{ucbvax|hplabs}!hpda!onrob@ptsfa.UUCP (Rob Bernardo) (08/13/85)
In article <503@hpda.UUCP> on@hpda.UUCP (Owen Rowley) writes: >Dear Netland > So here we are , on a national network that connects thousands of >computer professionals and there are a handfull of people who contribute >to this newsgroup. ... > Obviously the vast majority >of subscribers to this news group are just readers, I guess this is standard >but it would seem to me that we are missing an opportunity here to take >advantage of a valuable resource. Often two or more days to go by with no >postings at all!! The system I am on has at least one or two postings to net.motss each day. Maybe your system gets them in larger but less frequent bursts. > Look in net.women or net.religion and you will >find a whole different kind of ballgame, but here in net.motss you hardly >ever see responses to the few articles that do offer informative material >worthy of discussion. Too often when a topic starts up , like the recent >controversy over children and the state control of Gay peoples right to >foster parent, I see replies that consist of whining and bitching. >Perhaps the name motss is too obtuse and there are hundreds of Gay users >out there that don't know it exists on the net.... in which case we need >to get the word out... Is is difficult, desirable, etc. to have the name changed to net.gay (or whatever)? >Perhaps there just aren't that many Gay users out there, but I doubt that >More than likely its a reflection of closeted attitudes and unwillingness >to be known as Gay in the workplace. When I first started reading the net about a year ago, the social issues brought up in net.motss articles were issues interesting to me when I was ten years younger. (I'm mid-thirty). Another friend of mine (who is also in his thirties) felt the same way enough to feel he could not spare the time at work to read through articles that were mostly uninteresting to him. >Also from the geographical standpoint one might surmise that Gay people >only exist in Boston, and california. ( who knows mayby its true) Though >I suspect that once again this apparently uneven distribution reflects >closeted attitudes. Could this be a combination of a skewed geographic distribution of gay people and UNIX(tm) jobs? >To get back to my main point....there are a lot of things we could be >discussing here that could provide valuable resources for us all, >Gay and non Gay alike. I am not sure that this group should be a resource for the non-gay. I, for one, am not about to start explaining or defending my gayness in THIS group. However, I largely agree with Owen about the lack of on-going dialog about PERSONAL issues in our lives as gays. In my next postings (they will take a while to write) I will bring up some issues that are of personal interest to me as a gay man. -- +--------------+-------------------------------+ | Rob Bernardo | Pacific Bell | +--------------+ 2600 Camino Ramon, Room 4E700 | | 415-823-2417 | San Ramon, California 94583 | +--------------+-------------------------------+---------+ | ihnp4!ptsfa!rob | | {nsc,ucbvax,decwrl,amd,fortune,zehntel}!dual!ptsfa!rob | +--------------------------------------------------------+
sdyer@bbncc5.UUCP (Steve Dyer) (08/13/85)
Thanks for your pep talk, Owen, let's hope it will do some good. I doubt
it, however, since many ROMs (what a marvelous acronym) just aren't the
kind of people who post at all, and the rest are paralyzed by the thought
of doing so. It's worth reeopening the offer to post articles anonymously
sent to me by mail; I am more than happy to perform the favor, and to
forward mail back to the originator. Naturally, anyone else willing to do
so should speak up.
It is difficult to maintain a net-wide discussion with only a few
participants. As you note, there is really very little dialogue lately on
net.motss, little continuity between individual articles. In my case, I
prefer to err on the side of posting less frequently, or at least only when
I feel I have something important to say, lest the newsgroup become an
exercise in megalomania.
--
/Steve Dyer
{decvax,linus,ima,ihnp4}!bbncca!sdyer
sdyer@bbnccv.ARPAkrossen@bbncca.ARPA (Ken Rossen) (08/15/85)
Owen Rowley: >To get back to my main point....there are a lot of things we could be >discussing here that could provide valuable resources for us all, >Gay and non Gay alike. Rob Bernardo > I am not sure that this group should be a resource for the non-gay. > I, for one, am not about to start explaining or defending my gayness > in THIS group. Do you really believe that this group being "a resource for the non-gay" means only that you will be constantly challenged to defend your gayness? I don't dismiss the existence of hecklers, but I am disappointed that you project their tendencies onto all non-gays. This group has the potential to highlight important gay issues to the (USENET) world at large. Don't we all benefit from better understanding? Please don't let "heterophobia" get in the way. It would be a sad mistake. We are not all like Ken Arndt. We CAN accept you as you are, and I believe we can all learn a lot from each other. -- Ken Rossen ...!{decvax,ihnp4,ima,linus,harvard}!bbncca!krossen ... or ... krossen@bbnccp.ARPA
sdyer@bbncc5.UUCP (Steve Dyer) (08/15/85)
> > I am not sure that this group should be a resource for the non-gay. > > I, for one, am not about to start explaining or defending my gayness > > in THIS group. > > This group has the potential to highlight important gay issues to the > (USENET) world at large. Don't we all benefit from better understanding? > Please don't let "heterophobia" get in the way. It would be a sad mistake. > Here, here, Ken. For what it's worth (which admittedly is not much) net.motss was always intended as a forum for both gay and non-gay people, always in the context of sharing information for better understanding. It need not mean "defending" anything. Frankly, given the small volume of postings, I'd rather read an article from a single "heterosexual" than wait for the supposed-thousands of read-only gay people to speak up. -- /Steve Dyer {decvax,linus,ima,ihnp4}!bbncca!sdyer sdyer@bbnccv.ARPA
plw@mgwess.UUCP (Pete Wilson) (08/16/85)
In article <385@bbncc5.UUCP> sdyer@bbncc5.UUCP (Steve Dyer) writes: > >Here, here, Ken. For what it's worth (which admittedly is not much) >net.motss was always intended as a forum for both gay and non-gay people, >always in the context of sharing information for better understanding. It >need not mean "defending" anything. Frankly, given the small volume of >postings, I'd rather read an article from a single "heterosexual" than wait >for the supposed-thousands of read-only gay people to speak up. >-- >/Steve Dyer >{decvax,linus,ima,ihnp4}!bbncca!sdyer >sdyer@bbnccv.ARPA Ok, Steve, here's a posting from a non-gay: I've been passively reading this group almost from it's inception. I started reading it mostly out of curiosity. My contact with the gay community has been very little (mostly a couple of gay men I met in the Navy) and I was curious as to just how different gays are from straights. After reading 'Jason On Bars', I came to the conclusion that the inhabitants of gay bars belong to the same 'types' as those who go to straight bars (if you want to classify people into types). The only difference is sexual orientation. One person I worked with in the Navy 'came out' to me shortly after I started working with him (this was in the early sixties). I must have had a shocked look on my face because he immediately tried to reassure me, in a somewhat disgusted manner, that he wasn't going to attack me in the showers or curl up in my bunk with me! He was rather effeminate and took a lot of guff from those who didn't know him or work with him. We didn't discuss his gayness, so our discussions centered mostly around work, home, future plans, etc. I'm somewhat sorry now we didn't talk about being gay, because I think I wouldn't have been so homophobic for so long if we had. I have been 'hit on' a couple of times in bars by gays since then, but I just said it wasn't my style and they moved on. It did make me a little uneasy at the time, but it wasn't traumatizing. I've done a little analyzing of my homophobia, and have come to the conclusion that it stems from insecurity about my own masculinity. If I am seen talking to a gay man or admit I have gay acquaintances or friends, I THINK that others (males mostly) will think I am gay. It really shouldn't matter what others think as long as I know what and who I am. After reading this group for so long, I think I can accept gays better than I could a few years ago, but I'm still not entirely comfortable about it. Gays are not going to go away and they're not a 'threat', so where's the problem? I don't know. To be perfectly honest here, I must say that I think being gay is wrong; if not entirely from a religious standpoint, then certainly from a biological one. However, I'm not going to try to convince you folks of that - I'm going to try to accept you as you are. Just a few thoughts from a former homophobe.... Pete Wilson AT&T IS CGBS Montgomery Works ..!ihnp4!mgnetp!mgwess!plw