Gay porn is right there. (And yes, I know his idea is ‘well they are
having sex, but do they really want to’? And that is just your brain on
… whatever his brain is on).
I would argue that it's more the fact that there is a market for gay porn. After all, straight female actors have repeatedly reported being coerced into doing lesbian scenes against their will. One might suggest that the market for gay (male) porn is driven by straight women, much in the same way that the market for lesbian porn is driven primarily by straight men, but men tend to [watch a lot more porn](https://ifstudies.org/blog/the-porn-gap-gender-differences-in-pornography-use-in-couple-relationships) in general so the best explanation for the large market for gay male porn would still be the existence of gay men. The existence of straight women is yet to be proven or disproven.
Of course this is all unnecessary hair-splitting and your point stands.
If we are going to split hairs, even if 99% of the people consuming and creating gay porn are only gay for pay, the 1% would disprove Hansons idea. That a subset is not really gay doesn't disprove the part that is. But yes, if we continue this hair splitting eventually arrive at atom splitting ;).
One of the underrated aspects of internet porn is the data it gives us as a society (also, that’s extremely dangerous too). We can not only say for certain that men watching gay porn exist, but quantify their number to a certain degree and prove that they don’t watch any straight porn either.
Well, if we are splitting hairs we extreme epistemological doubt, we can't even be sure that we are being given that data. If we assume that people might lie about being gay for some weird undefined benefit, the porn sites might also lie about the porn stats. If you are looking for a reason to doubt a minority, you can always find one. (And yes haters of sneerclub who are hatereading this, I see that this also applies partially to sneerclub).
(I dont doubt the existence of of people attracted to men at all btw, im just trying to explain where I think the faulty reasoning comes from and where this silly homohobia eventually leads).
I can understand why someone creating gay porn would be gay for pay. But, from a Hansonian mind that believes markets are good at approximating peoples' true preferences, the existence of men who *pay* for gay porn, with their time and their actual money, is proof that there are gay men. You would have to have a pretty serious (and stupid) conspiracy to pay straight dudes to sit around and watch gay porn and spend money on gay OnlyFans all day.
Ow yes, the theory is stupid, but what else is 'the sort of thing people would want to claim even if not true.' supposed to mean. If we are fantasizing about imaginary benefits gay people get, why not include a conspiracy to pay gay people.
I can even add another step, we know (as in it is a right wing fantasy) that immigrants (aka refugees) fleeing from oppression in non western countries fake being gay so they can stay (yes, this is an IRL problem in The Netherlands, imagine how you would prove you really are gay, and not faking to be gay to be let in, catch 22). This is what is driving all the consumption of gay porn.
Im like 4 levels deep into 'invent a new guy' here btw.
the sort of thing people would want to claim even if not true
Uh, what? I’ll admit that I’m not up to date on homophobic crankery,
but what agenda is “claim gay men exist when they don’t” supposed to
serve? It seems to me that the only people helped by the message “gay
people exist” are gay people.
Yeah, that needs a whole support structure of other assumptions about oppressed groups (they are only doing it for the attention/money or some of that shit), he is a bit telling on himself.
This has always been the big hole in theories about gay/trans/non-binary people choosing to be that way; usually membership in those groups comes with severe downsides, up to and including an increased risk of being murdered. Why in the world would anyone choose to face that kind of prejudice voluntarily?
Because the stupid naive left gives every minority free money and attention. It is all the Oppression Olympics created by the reptiles! Wake up sheeple! (I combined a few conspiracy theories, for dramatic effect, but I guess that is the idea. And yeah it makes no sense that a large amoubt of people would volunteer for that (but a rationalizing method is to then say the whole left is just mentally ill, ever noticed how often that comes up on the right?)).
To be honest, thats not really a good argument: There are plenty of examples of people joining persecuted groups (religious ones being the most common of course) on an individual level it is often a matter of whether or not the sense of community in the group outweighs the persecution.
Now, I dont think being gay is a choice, but "Why would anyone chose it when they are being persecuted?" is a bit of a false one. People join persecuted groups all the time.
Let's be serious now, people very rarely if ever "become" another ethnicity... but there are illegal "house churches" in China, which operate independently of the state-run churches, and there are Falun Gong practitioners, even though that group is banned.
"Becoming" an ethnicity is a complicated issue, but in this case the reverse is probably a better one: People continue to identify as Uighur and keep up with Uighur cultural practices despite persecution.
And as mentioned, there are a variety of groups (religious, political, even just straight up criminal) that people join despite persecution, even stuff like the underground jazz scene in Nazi Germany.
Point is that there are all sorts of reasons to join a community, and while persecution is definitely something that is likely to deter people from doing so, it is not the only factor, or neccessarily the overriding one.
"Those other people are doing sex different" is EXACTLY the sort of thing lots of people claim even if not true. For example, see all the lurid stories about daycares that circulated in 90s churches.
Growing up in conservative Christian communities in the 90s, I didn't (knowingly) meet any gay people until I went to college, and with limited internet I didn't see a lot of porn either. I can totally relate to not having any proof that gay people were real and wondering if preachers had just made them up to panic about.
I was also routinely warned about demons, evolutionists, etc. too, so I had fairly good reason to be skeptical of what I was told at church and in Christian homeschooling materials...which is where all of my information about gay people came from.
“Why did you find it implausible? Around half the population is
sexually attracted to men at some point in their lives. Did you think
females were a different species entirely?”
Hanson: “To be honest, I also found it somewhat hard to believe that
women were attracted to men, though I did believe that.”
? ? ? This gives off big “I have yet to meet a hetero woman who
enthusiastically participates in sex.” energy
To be honest, when I was a kid I found it really hard to believe to. Just like I couldn't understand how people could like pea soup (I hated pea soup)
Yet as I grew up, I learned that people are different, and like different things. This guy does not seem to have learned that his preferences are not universal.
> "I have yet to meet a hetero woman who enthusiastically participates in sex."
i think most teenage boys never learn this isn't true. i also think they don't learn it's false because of structural reasons...
It is homophobia. There is, growing up in a homophobic social situation, and then later realizing this gave you same bad homophobic ideas due to that (which is a pretty universal experience sadly). And there is not updating your priors (Hanson is one of those 'talks about priors a lot' dudes right?) and staying homophobic because you just don't want to believe. This shows a scary lack of empathy from Hansons part.
It's such a blatantly wrong view that I initially read him to be implying that he disbelieved because he thought it was an excuse to persecute random people. Analogous to how one might claim witches exist in order to resolve community tension or acquire property from the accused.
Since it's Hanson, I'm pretty sceptical that my initial reading was right lol.
It’s almost as if the “trans people don’t exist, they’re just
autogynephiles” take is just a rehash of the same tired trope Hanson and
his generation repeated about gay people.
Absolutely astounding that THIS is the conclusion he’s come to
instead of “youthful me’s naivety and self-centeredness made it
difficult to understand the desires of people different from me.”
Y’know, like most adults do.
I thought Hanson’s fried chicken & watermelon tweet a while back
had taught him to stop putting his foot in his mouth, but it looks like
he’s growing accustomed to the taste.
It’s a joke, come on. You know how rationalists are terrible at
communicating with non-rat? It’s reasonable to misunderstand this, but I
read it as a concise meme pointing at several things:
making fun of homophobes
making fun of science communication, probably in continuation on an
ongoing complaint in how the CDC talked about covid in early march/april
2020. (a common complaint among rationalists)
as a corollary to that, pointing out that rationalists suffer from
the same problem, by exaggerating it.
Agree on first part. The anecdote is true, the joke is in being overly literal in the last sentence, to the point of conveying almost no information.
He went to [this conference](https://lefrakforum.msu.edu/events/free-speech-conference.html) last weekend, so I believe the choice of anecdote about gay men is deliberately inflammatory.
Not a good choice, IMO, but I can see a case for it.
Sorry, how is being "deliberately inflammatory" an *excuse* for saying weird shit? "Oh, sure I said some fucked up shit, but it's okay because I did it on purpose"
He says that being gay is " the sort of thing people would want to claim even if not true ", which is fucking crazy weird.
Part 1: Under your disciplinarian definition of "excuse," I agree with you. It's not an excuse. It's a bad choice prompted by the free speech on campus conference, which specifically had discussion about saying things that parse as inflammatory, but are technically benign.
Part 2: he said he used to think that when he was younger. I agree it's weird, but I wasn't alive back then.
You are literally throwing excuse after excuse at me in order to defend this weird tweet with homophobic undertones (why would someone claim to be gay if they weren't?). Have you considered doing anything else?
so was he being 'deliberately inflammatory', or was he 'saying things that parse as inflammatory, but are technically benign'? you're going to twist yourself into a pretzel
That's not a contradiction. Inflammation is caused by how the statement is viewed. When I said 'technically benign,' I meant a motte he can fall back to by asking people to read his statement literally. It's an unkind but common manipulation.
> rationalists are terrible at communicating with non-rat
I don’t. In my experience working out what they’re trying to do is incredibly easy because even if it’s expressed in arcane fashion the idea is rarely as arcane as the expression. It’s just that those thoughts and method of communication aren’t particularly well thought out.
How is it making fun of homophobes?
If anything, it puts them in a better light. 'homophobes just can't believe gay people exist' is more palatable explanation than the more likely reality of 'homophobes view gay people with disgust and rejection'.
Illustrating the incredible thought process that would be required to hold on to the belief that openly-gay people are just pretending to be gay.
I see it this way because I have seen many non-x-phobic people making x-phobic jokes, (usually it’s gay people making homophobic jokes) because making the joke highlights how irrational it would be to seriously hold this opinion.
As an example, I like to quote the line “how do they decide which man’s penis will open up to accept the other’s?” Because actually believing that would be dumb.
[deleted]
I wonder how Hanson’s gay students would feel if they read this tweet? What exactly is Hanson signaling by posting this?
wat
Gay porn is right there. (And yes, I know his idea is ‘well they are having sex, but do they really want to’? And that is just your brain on … whatever his brain is on).
Uh, what? I’ll admit that I’m not up to date on homophobic crankery, but what agenda is “claim gay men exist when they don’t” supposed to serve? It seems to me that the only people helped by the message “gay people exist” are gay people.
“Why did you find it implausible? Around half the population is sexually attracted to men at some point in their lives. Did you think females were a different species entirely?”
Hanson: “To be honest, I also found it somewhat hard to believe that women were attracted to men, though I did believe that.”
? ? ? This gives off big “I have yet to meet a hetero woman who enthusiastically participates in sex.” energy
[deleted]
It’s almost as if the “trans people don’t exist, they’re just autogynephiles” take is just a rehash of the same tired trope Hanson and his generation repeated about gay people.
Absolutely astounding that THIS is the conclusion he’s come to instead of “youthful me’s naivety and self-centeredness made it difficult to understand the desires of people different from me.” Y’know, like most adults do.
I thought Hanson’s fried chicken & watermelon tweet a while back had taught him to stop putting his foot in his mouth, but it looks like he’s growing accustomed to the taste.
This has to be a joke. Right?… RIGHT?
that sure is a novel way to explain your browser history
The “many” might refer to significant numbers of men who do not identify as gay. Or not. Why can’t he say what he means?
As a gay, the mans got a sense of humor
It’s a joke, come on. You know how rationalists are terrible at communicating with non-rat? It’s reasonable to misunderstand this, but I read it as a concise meme pointing at several things:
No very direct evidence either.