modified

Hakker · Post by **Hakker** » 06 May 2006 10:42

I have nothing against you. I'm not trying to bait you. I apologize if you think so.

sniikeri · Post by **sniikeri** » 06 May 2006 11:33

Slowsis wrote:Lets picture little Nathan, at age 6, in a classroom being told about some people who perfer to have a family where there are two dad's. Would that have had ANY chance of making him a homosexual? Or would he have grown up the exact same way, if maybe a little more tolerent?

My biology book said that homosexual men's brain structure and hormone activity is different from the heterosexual mens'.* It's caused by genes.
The behaviour of parents and the environment/surroundings (I don't know what the right word is) have no relevance to the children becoming homosexual.
So my guess would be that Nathan, 6 years, might just become more tolerant. He'd become homosexual, if he had such genes.

*the book said that such researches haven't been done with women.

Bagira · Post by **Bagira** » 07 May 2006 23:26

Anything about bisexual men's brain structures and genetics in that book fo yours? What about...umm...asexual men? Oh, wait...no. They'd HAVE to be hypocrits according to modern society if men don't want sex, right?

As to the general discussion, pointing to Jeremy, homosexuality has definitely existed way more than a few thousand years. Read a few textbooks on ancient civilizations. Notably, methinks it was the ancient greeks who made 'homosexuality' popular for the first time. The reason I put it in quotes though is that the idea of being solely gay, in my opinion is a recent idea/trend. Sure, they believed that fucking a boy was more beautiful than same with female, but it was only second to that of reproduction. Homosexuality was viewed as a luxury. Only the well-off could take part. Back then, I doubt homosexuality was reffered to as that with the same tinge of negativity as we add in today. It was normal...and if not normal, then SPECIAL.

Thus, IMO, the question shouldn't be whether homosexuality existed for however long, but we should isntead examine when people decided to be purely 'gay'. Which is when I think the idea of homosexuality became a sin. Of course, I'm just sketicizing. I have no concrete proof of this theory. This could be interesting to research though.

carl winslow · Post by **carl winslow** » 08 May 2006 13:40

yup, same kind of thing happened in Edo period Japan.

Tsiangkun · Post by **Tsiangkun** » 08 May 2006 14:23

Bagira wrote: we should isntead examine when people decided to be purely 'gay'.

Model organisms become 'gay' with changes in just one gene.

When did you choose to not be gay ? How often do you have to remind yourself of that choice ?

BainbridgeShred · Post by **BainbridgeShred** » 08 May 2006 14:49

Their isn't a good argument for why the word "gay" should be banned on modified, but curses and slurs in general are just ways for ignorant people to express themselves, usually without sucess.

Switch Kicker · Post by **Switch Kicker** » 09 May 2006 06:10

/begin rant
You can't put a label on a word anymore. It's not even possible. The word, "Gay" has no meaning. It's just vibrations in the air, that are interpreted by your brain, making "sense" out of them.

Even if the word gay is widely recognized and accepted as meaning something, you still technically means nothing. This whole post means nothing, it's all just electrons moving accross your screen making weird patterns that for some reason make "sense" to our minds when received by our eyes.

However, on a slightly less technical level... Gay is no longer widely used to rag on homosexuals. The word "Fag" is used more for that now days. Gay is simply used to demean (SP?) something that's happening, or something you don't like. Gay is not a word for a homosexual. That's just slang, something that has no meaning. Kinda like how my school counseler told me to turn my shirt inside out because it had a picture of a beaver on a stump and said, "Beavers love wood." I told her that it simply means that beavers in the wild like to chew on wood, and gather wood, to build their homes. And that this slang word is only disgusting to someone who interprets it as disgusting, meaning that that person has a disgusting mind. With that I turned and walked out of her office, because she knew damn well that I was right and she was wrong. Gay is only offensive to someone that veiws it as offensive. So only someone that has used, or experienced someone else using the word as representation of a homosexual, would think that it's being used as representation for a homosexual.

I for one have never used the word "gay" as an offensive representation for a homosexual. I have a few gay friends, and I've asked them if they are gay, but I do not use it in a demeaning way. My friend Eliot. He's black, and he's really tall. He's gay. That isn't an offensive term. It's only offensive to people that see it as offensive, meaning that you are either unsecure about your sexuality, (Which you should go figure that out if you are.) or you are insecure about how you will look to others when they see that you are affiliated with someone who uses this word. And you shouldn't be. It's not a bad word unless used in a bad way, and is interpreted by someone in a bad way.

However, as said before. The word gay is rarely used to rip on homosexuals any more. It's used to rip on activities and such. Like I think NASCAR racing is gay. I'm simply saying that it's dumb, boring, takes too long, they get paid too much, doesn't require as much skill as people think it does, and is just an excuse to go out with friends drinking in public with bear drinking hats on... And excuse to be a dumbass for the day. You may interpret that sentence in a bad way if you like, for I will not care, because that's my opinion.

/end rant

/begin rant
Another thing. You don't have to specify that you are stating an opinion for it to be an opinion. You all speak of ignorance through use of words such as gay, when it's ignorance to accept the word for what it really is. My earlier sentence about NASCAR, can be interpreted as fact or opinion. Because I specified neither of them. However, you can easily assume that it's my opinion, simply because of the fact that it IS an opinion. Do not assume that someone is stating opinion as fact simply because they didn't not flat out say that the fallowing sentence is their opinion. It's not required. You can gather enough information from thier post to realize that they are stating this as an opinion. I know what the fucking definition of an opinion is, but I do not need to explain to you when I am stating an opinion, because you should already have enough logic in you to realize that it is an opinion and be able to gather that I already KNOW that it's my opinion. Get it?

/end rant

That was fun.

Peace,
Fred.

HighDemonslayer · Post by **HighDemonslayer** » 09 May 2006 11:06

The moderators should put up a list of crime-speak, specifically outlining which words are verbotten.

-n

james_dean · Post by **james_dean** » 09 May 2006 18:36

Switch Kicker wrote:/begin rant
You can't put a label on a word anymore. It's not even possible. The word, "Gay" has no meaning. It's just vibrations in the air, that are interpreted by your brain, making "sense" out of them.

Even if the word gay is widely recognized and accepted as meaning something, you still technically means nothing. This whole post means nothing, it's all just electrons moving accross your screen making weird patterns that for some reason make "sense" to our minds when received by our eyes.

Hello! Over here! Yeah, it's the real world calling! What did that have to do with anything? Yes, I did understand it, I just think it's ridiculous, try to be at least a little pragmatic, that whole two paragraphs had nothing to do with anything. This is not a philosophy thread. (On a side note, if you want to talk about philosophy then I'm up for it

)

Gay is not a word for a homosexual. That's just slang, something that has no meaning.

I completely agree. However, homosexuals take offense to this. To them, it comes across as demeaning. We don't have a need to use the word gay, so it's probably best if we just don't. Remember that it's a forum rule because the majority of people asked for it to be.

Another thing. You don't have to specify that you are stating an opinion for it to be an opinion.

I think what people are trying to say is: "This is what I think. I don't hate you if you think otherwise, and I'm not really in the mood to justify it. It's just what I think, OK?"
You really need to see through the technical meaning of words to their real meaning in that context. But hey, that's just my opinion.

shredzilla · Post by **shredzilla** » 09 May 2006 21:51

james_dean wrote: We don't have a need to use the word gay, so it's probably best if we just don't. Remember that it's a forum rule because the majority of people asked for it to be.

Okay guys, I have a confession to make. This whole thread was made up by Splint because I made a joke in a completely seperate thread saying 'Smoking is gay' and trying to draw Moxie's edit for it. It was really a joke to poke fun at the mod-edit controversy, and not meant to offend anyone.

She never flagged it because it's not against forum policy to say the word gay. Sure, it may be offensive to some to use the word that way, but it's not against policy. Saying the words, I'll censor it myself to save the mods work, f*g or 'f*gg*t' is prohibited. I just thought I'd throw that out there while you guys continue to debate the validity of the word gay, which is not against forum rules to use any which way you want, however offensive to some people it may be.

/end rant and final post in this God-forsaken thread!!!

Moxie · Post by **Moxie** » 09 May 2006 23:47

shredzilla wrote:Saying the words, I'll censor it myself to save the mods work, f*g or 'f*gg*t' is prohibited. I just thought I'd throw that out there while you guys continue to debate the validity of the word gay, which is not against forum rules to use any which way you want, however offensive to some people it may be.

In this situation, you wouldn't need to censor yourself. You're are discussing the use of these words, not actually using them.

When "gay" is used in place of a negative word such as "lame," "stupid," "bad," "gross," etc it comes off very much as derogatory use of the word that represents a group of people, so it is edited out. I don't see it as being any different than using a word representing a race in a negative way.

It's weird to me that people are picking this specific example as something to battle over or discuss so much.

And I know you're trying to bait me, Chris Miller, but

shredzilla wrote:She never flagged it because it's not against forum policy to say the word gay.

You don't have anything to base your assumption on-no way to know why I do or do not do things on Modified. You're right, the word gay is not against forum policy, but that's a poor argument. There are a lot of words that aren't directly listed as "against the rules" in the forum policy that are still not allowed.

Jerk.

james_dean · Post by **james_dean** » 10 May 2006 00:20

not against forum policy? hm, interesting. I only used it in a derogatory way here once, it got mod edited, and I was told if I continued to use it that way I would be banned. Or something. I was under the impression that it was a fairly strict rule. Oh well, the majority of people still don't want it used, it's just common courtesy

Also Chris, the original reason for this thread actually has nothing to do with the discussion itself.

Moxie · Post by **Moxie** » 10 May 2006 00:22

Okay, it is very possible that I am very wrong...

james_dean · Post by **james_dean** » 10 May 2006 00:24

Well, are there any rules written up anywhere? If there's not, then really there are NO set rules. Just some agreement between mods that is probably very open to personal interpretation.

Jeremy · Post by **Jeremy** » 10 May 2006 00:33

It used to be against forum rules - at least to my knowledge and there are definitely topics stipulating this. The rules for the disucssion forum say you're allowed to use the word so long as you're saying something relevent to the discussion. Who knows what the forum rules are these days...

Moxie · Post by **Moxie** » 10 May 2006 00:39

james_dean wrote:I only used it in a derogatory way here once, it got mod edited, and I was told if I continued to use it that way I would be banned. Or something. I was under the impression that it was a fairly strict rule. Oh well, the majority of people still don't want it used, it's just common courtesy

I bolded the things that stood out to me.

I'm sorry, I didn't get your post the first time I read it. I think you either misinterpreted what I said or you didn't understand it, maybe because I was not clear enough.

If I say "My friend Billy just told me that he's gay and I didn't know how to respond." I didn't do anything bad. The word gay is not banned. You won't get in trouble for using it in that situation. But, like you said for what happened with you, when you use it in a derogatory way it gets edited out sometimes. I don't know who would have threatened to ban you, especially after it happening just once, but that's a different matter. My point was that the WORD is not banned, it's just edited if used as a put down.

The forum rules are being reworked in the mod/admin forum right now, and ideas will be put out in public soon.

Jeremy · Post by **Jeremy** » 10 May 2006 00:46

Moxie wrote: The forum rules are being reworked in the mod/admin forum right now, and ideas will be put out in public soon.

Why is it being done in private - how would it hurt for the members of the forum to have a say in the rules used on the forum?

james_dean · Post by **james_dean** » 10 May 2006 00:51

Moxie, of course the word gay isn't banned. I meant that I thought it was banned in that context. If you used gay in a derogatory way then it was against forum rules.

From memory the mod was a friend of mine and it wasn't a 'threat' as such, more just letting me know the rules.

Switch Kicker · Post by **Switch Kicker** » 10 May 2006 11:06

james_dean wrote:I completely agree. However, homosexuals take offense to this. To them, it comes across as demeaning. We don't have a need to use the word gay, so it's probably best if we just don't. Remember that it's a forum rule because the majority of people asked for it to be.

... I can play that.

The word Footbag is against my religion and I think that it should be banned.

Peace,
Fred.

slapdash21 · Post by **slapdash21** » 13 May 2006 10:54

no you cant, because not only are you not in a majority with that opinion now, i have a feeling you may never be