"Good evening, America. My name is Jered Townsend from Clio, Michigan,” the YouTube citizen questioner began. “To all the candidates, tell me your position on gun control, as myself and other Americans really want to know if our babies are safe.” Townsend then pulled out his Bushmaster AR-15. “This is my ‘baby,’ purchased under the 1994 gun ban. Please tell me your views. Thank you."
Jered Thompson's relationship with his Bushmaster AR-15 is fundamentally erotic. Sure, Jered might use his gun for hunting. Sure, he might use it for security. But above and beyond everything else, that Bushmaster AR-15 is Jared's "baby." Ooohh. Baby! Baby! Not only that, Jared also thinks that most American gun owners think that way about their guns: ". . . other
Americans really want to know if our babies are safe."
This reminds me of the time that my brother-in-law Charlie came back from a "Court Days" gun show in Mount Sterling, KY talking about the weird kinds of "love" guys had for their guns and I asked one of my classes how many people knew guys who had more affection for their guns than their wives or girlfriends.
Nearly everybody raised their hands.
Which leads us to think a little about sexual orientation. In popular American culture, sexual orientation is considered dichotomously. The fundemantal divide is between heterosexuality and gay sexuality. Of course, "gay" refers most often to heterosexual males but the terms is also used as a cover concept for lesbians, bi-sexuals, and trans-sexuals as well. I think other forms of sexuality that are not heterosexual in any strict sense should be brought under the concept of gayness as well. I'm especially thinking of the male homoeroticism in which all their affection, trust, love, and intimacy is oriented toward other guys even if they have sexual intercourse with women. That stikes me as a form of "gay" sexuality although it's not homosexual.
The same is the case with the sexual relationships that gun owners have with their guns (and other forms of fetishism I guess). Given that their "babies" are their guns, it's hard to see them as heterosexual in the narrow sense we use that term in American society. So, they would have to be gay.
Hmm. I guess there are a lot more gay people than I used to think.
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32 comments:
"I'm especially thinking of the male homoeroticism in which all their affection, trust, love, and intimacy is oriented toward other guys even if they have sexual intercourse with women. That stikes me as a form of "gay" sexuality although it's not homosexual."
If a man or woman exhibits "affection, trust, love and intimacy" towards children do you consider that a form of pedophilia? I am also wondering if you have trouble expressing "affection, trust, love, and intimacy" to other men? Because that kind of insecurity could be read as homophobia brought on by your own insecurities and possible repressed homosexuality. At least that was what they taught me when I was in college. You may want to seek some professional help, dude, I don't think this obsession of yours is healthy.
You don't get it. You think I said that men were homoerotic if they displayed ANY affection toward other men. What I said was that they were homoerotic if they exibited ALL their affection, trust, love, etc. to other guys. By the way, I don't see anything wrong with that. I've known tons of guys who were homoerotic in this sense. I'm sure you have as well. In the same way, I don't see anything wrong with guys whose "baby" is their gun. I just don't want these kinds of guys posing themselves as a normative model for everybody else to adopt.
I have finally figured out the point of this post:
You are trying to trick the Christians into thinking guns are sex toys and outlawing them, right?
Keep working on it.
Michael - The key to this post is that Professor Caric just to keep making shit up, and assigning names to those that do not share his political ideology. Interestingly enough, though a prof in womyn's studies and race, he choose words like "weenie boys" and "gay" as he assumes them to be some kind of perjorative term, but speaks more about himself.
The "weenie boy" term is questionable and I stated so in my original "Weenie Boy and Masculinity" Post. However, I think it stands up if you remember the orientation of a lot of right-wingers toward outsized or comic-book gestures of masculinity. In fact, there is something "weenie-ish" about that.
By the way, people stop on the street in my Kentucky town and tell me how much they like the "weenie boy" concept. There must be something to it.
But I'm not using the term "gay" in any pejorative sense whatsoever in relation to gun owners.
(finishing previous comment) Gun owners can do or imagine doing anything with their guns within certain legal and moral limits that they want. I'm all for it.
And I'm sure that there are lots of other forms of fetishistic sexuality among right-wingers that should be considered "gay" if we're still using the heterosexual vs gay dichotomy.
I'm all for them as well.
In fact, it may turn out that most people have enough homoeroticism, autoeroticism, fetishistic behavior, etc. to be considered "gay" within the current rubric.
And I'm all for that as well.
However, I'm surprised that all the cool/hip people at Protein Wisdom aren't wondering about whether gun owners should be allowed to get married.
To the gun owner, the firearm is a symbol of individualism. The intense attachment is analogous to that of individuals fawning over their car.
The term "my baby" is used often for any item about which the owner feels a great amout of pride. Cars, tools, historic artifacts. It is not necessarily indicative of a sexual attraction, as it might when used for significant other.
To be erotic, In my mind, one must receive some level of sexual gratification from the realtionship. I know a lot of gun owners, and while there is a fetish out there for everything imaginable, your characterisation of that relationship is inaccurate.
ef - The Professor likes to make shit up, especially if it allows him to call some wingers a name.
I know but, intellectually, I can't hang with the PW crowd, so I've started coming here to feel superior.
'What I said was that they were homoerotic if they exibited ALL their affection, trust, love, etc. to other guys. By the way, I don't see anything wrong with that. I've known tons of guys who were homoerotic in this sense."
Really? Tons of guys? I would call that an obsession or a fixation, if they displayed "ALL their affection, trust, love, etc." to anybody or anything, and would have a hard time considering it truly sexual at all.
"I'm sure you have as well."
Not tons, only a few. And from a distance.
"But I'm not using the term "gay" in any pejorative sense whatsoever in relation to gun owners."
Huh?
" In the same way, I don't see anything wrong with guys whose "baby" is their gun. I just don't want these kinds of guys posing themselves as a normative model for everybody else to adopt."
Not pejorative? I consider abnormal to be a bit pejorative, and warranted if dudes are fucking a gun, but if you really think there is nothing wrong with it, like gay sex, why would you not consider it a proper normative model? Do you feel this way about all gay sex?
"And I'm sure that there are lots of other forms of fetishistic sexuality among right-wingers that should be considered "gay" if we're still using the heterosexual vs gay dichotomy.
I'm all for them as well."
I see that, even though you...
"...think other forms of sexuality that are not heterosexual in any strict sense should be brought under the concept of gayness as well."
I think the key words here are other and non-normative. Do any of your gay friends read this blog, professor?
Once again, Professor Caric resorts to just making shit up so he can call wingers names.
I hope you do better than this in the classroom, Professor, because this tripe is laughable.
Any of you trolls ever see the G. Gordon Liddy calendar? You know, the ones in which the girls get mostly naked (or completely) and model their guns? But, there's no strange attraction in that, right?
Um.... something strange about an attraction to mostly naked girls, timb?
Having slept on it, I could perhaps find an argument for autoeroticism in all this. As mentioned earlier the firearm, like sports cars and other things we men "compensate" with, tend to be viewed as an extension (sorry) of the owner.
Timb - Is there anything strange about being attracted to hot women in various stages of undress?
If you need the gun to get off, then there's something weird. If you find a woman more sexy when she is carrying a gun, I would maintain you have a couple of eroticism issues which you might want to mention at your next therapy session (presuming your mother will still pay for therapy, which for a PW "anonymous" troll is asking a lot....since you're still living in her basement and using her DSL connection for your witticisms and all).
After all, what's better than asking a question and getting asked ridiculously stupid questions in reply? PW style: "oh, I'm going to go ahead and intentionally miss the point, so I can make this lame joke about ______ (locker room humor, John Edwards haircut, or how evil those Muslims are).
So, anonymouses, you have seen it and you find chicks carrying a gun, an instrument of death, more sexy than chicks without guns? I believe that was the professor's point (although I thought it a bit over the top, I am willing to admit when the gun nuts are more weird than I gave them credit for).
The original point was that it was gay. Arguing that it is weird does not support the point of the original post.
ef - That makes little to no difference to these clowns. They have to get exhausted running around with the goalposts all the time.
I like to pick 'em up and put them back where they belong every now and then. Futile? Perhaps, but it gives me something to do.
ef - you would fit in nicely at proteinwisdom.
Long time lurker there, but the conversation moves so quick, by the time I get around to commenting, most everything seems to have been said.
You think right, or rather, correctly. More voices are always better.
I think what bothers timmy about the Liddy calender is that reThugs are supposed to like their women barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen. Nothing is more basically empowering than a gun, and the idea that us knuckle draggers would find half-naked, fully empowered women hot is a perversion beyond their ability to assimilate.
No, what bothers me is the guns. Guns are "empowering"? Spoken like a child soldier in Sierra Leone. Guns are a scourge on the world.
I heard a comedian sum it nicely: "I find it sad that you need to go into the woods and shoot Bambi just because you can't satisfy a woman."
The fact that you speak of empowerment and guns should indicate to all us that you feel inferior about the parts of a man which make on feel like a man....I feel sorry for you.
Before guns, carrying a sword in London was granted only to "freemen". The ability to arm yourself against attack from others or the government IS empowering. It's not so much about it being a firearm, as it is about being able to provide for your own defense. It is reliance on self, rather than a government body.
Funny lines from entertainers don't equate to truths. Between you and the professor there is an unhealthy fascination with equating everything to sex 'round here. While there is something massively affirming about dropping a 6 point (eastern count) out in the woods, it definitely isn't sexual.
Come to think about it... It is so affirming that by the time I get home I do feel some pretty strong urges that my wife wants nothing to do with since I stink of 3 days worth of unwashed doe estrus and entrails.
ef, let me just add that my view is a personal view and not a public policy view. I firmly support the 2nd Amendment.
I respect your argument around personal defense (don't feel the need for it myself, plus I have small children, so I try to keep guns and swimming pools off my property) and I'm all in favor of you going to kill Bambi (I assume from you description that you are eating this fine animal, since you described skinning it). Lastly, as I would caution all gun rights supporters (especially B Moe), I would avoid stating you are using the gun as a way to stave off tyrannical government. That claim only weakens the pro-gun argument as it is clearly balderdash. Ask David Koresh. Hell, ask the people of Iraq where, according to one military source I read, "every house has two AK-47; one for home and one for travel."
Small arms wouldn't protect anyone from this Armed Forces.
I say stick with hunting, personal defense, and sexualizing naked chicks with guns. They are the best arguments.
Just a suggestion from an ACLU member.
And yet a handful of folks with small arms are giving us fits in Iraq right now. So much so that it is a lost, nay LOST, cause. That is the same military that would be storming my house were I to set up my own doomsday cult(worth considering). Anyway, it worked at least once on this continent.
You firmly support the 2nd Amendment AND guns are a scourge on the world?!
I do not object to law-abiding citizens owning guns. But don't try to sell people on the notion that gun ownership is NOT covered by the 2nd Amendment. Here's why:
The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
the National Rifle Association and other opponents of rational restrictions on guns charge that gun control laws violate the Second Amendment to our Constitution. According to the NRA and like-minded groups and individuals, the Second Amendment's guarantee of a "right to keep and bear arms" is as broad and fundamental as the First Amendment freedoms of speech, assembly and the press. The NRA has even argued that citizens have a constitutional right to own machine guns and military-style assault weapons.
This constitutional theory is a calculated distortion of the text, history and judicial interpretation of the Second Amendment. Contrary to the gun lobby's propaganda, the Second Amendment guarantees the people the right to be armed only in connection with service in a "well regulated Militia."
The gun lobby's distortion of the Second Amendment begins with its words. Opponent of gun safety legislation usually cite the "right to keep and bear arms" without mentioning the introductory phrase "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free state". the omitted phrase is the key to understanding that the Second Amendment guarantees only a limited right that is not violated by laws affecting the private ownership of firearms.
The "obvious purpose" of the Second Amendment was "to assure the continuation and render possible the effectiveness" of state militia forces.
The concept of a "well regulated Militia" is somewhat foreign to 20th century America, but it is central to the meaning of the Second Amendment.
At the time the U.S. Constitution was adopted, each of the states had its own "militia" -- a military force comprised of ordinary citizens serving as part-time soldiers. Most of the adult male population was required by state law to enlist in the militia. The militia was "well regulated" in the sense that its members were subject to various legal requirements. They were, for example, required to report for training several days a year, to supply their own equipment for militia use, including guns and sometimes to engage in military exercises away from home.
The purpose of the militia was expressed in the Second Amendment to assure "the security of a free State" against threats from without.
The modern "well regulated Militia" is the National Guard -- a state-organized military force of ordinary citizens serving as part-time soldiers, like the early state militia. However, unlike the early militia, the National Guard is of more limited membership and depends on government-supplied -- not privately owned -- arms. Whereas in 1787 federal restrictions on privately owned guns may have interfered with the "well regulated Militia," this is not the case today. Gun control laws have no effect on the arming of today's militia, since those laws invariably exempt the National Guard. Therefore, they raise no serious Second Amendment issue.
So, while I do not personally object to ownership of guns, never think that it is a right.
It was not the PWC bringing up the 2d ammendment. Anyway, it's immaterial to the post, which attempts to show that gun haters are homophobes, but falls apart when it fails to establish the necessary gayness of guns in the first place.
ef, the thing ruining Iraq is the military grade explosives and IED fixins that were looted in the days after the invasion (and now come from Iran, if you listen to Michael Ledeen). I know two people who served in the vast sandbox that is Iraq and neither of them was afraid of an AK.
Anon, it's called a legal position. Personally, I loathe guns, but, since my reading of the 2nd Amendment is substantially different from Todd's (i.e. I think the rights of the people refers to individuals), I think the Constitution guarantees people the right to have guns and use them lawfully.
It's the difference between dreams and reality and the PW folks are unfamiliar with it, since their founder lives in a dream world.
Well, timb, most all of my coworkers have been over there at least once. Yeah, the IEDs do most of the damage. Snipers have been known to do a bit too. If they were better marksmen, they could probably do a fair bit more. Small arms don't do much against armor but they do have their role in keeping that conflict going.
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