Be kind and be truthful, love each other

In the May issue of the gay magazine Attitude [1], I read a text about bisexuality. Attitude is originally an English magazine, but since 2017 they have a Dutch sister. The column I read is written by Tanja Ineke. She is the chairman of the largest Dutch gay organization COC. She explains that there are a lot of misunderstandings about bisexuality and about bisexuals. For instance, many people that are attracted to both sexes don't call themselves bisexual. They are not comfortable with this term, this 'identity'. Tanja Ineke wants that people will get rid of the prejudices concerning this issue, and by writing her text in Attitude, she is contributing to this cause, she writes. Well, she is right. But...

Let me first say how I see sexuality. I see all kinds of people. Some attracted to males, others to females. Some attracted to children, some attracted to bridges. Bridges? Yes bridges. Let's continue. Some attracted to brown people, some to white people, some to Asian people. Some attracted to dominant persons, some attracted to heroin street whores. Some attracted to rich people, some attracted to homeless people. Some to criminals, some to people wearing a suit. And (almost) everything else you or anybody else can come up with. And last but not least: all kinds of combinations do exist too.

When gays are suppressed enormously, then nobody will admit being one, and everybody is one hundred percent straight. When acceptation is starting to grow, we see that some people 'are' gay. At the same time stopping straight guys to be intimate with each other, otherwise they are labeled gay. In gay suppressive countries a man can be more intimate with a man, because no one will (openly dare to) think: they might be gay. When the tolerance of gay people keeps rising, then you will see that even straight people are going to say more and more: 'I'm a bit gay too.' In surveys we nowadays see, that youngsters are more gay and bisexual than the older generations. I tell you that is not a matter of Darwinism, but it's a matter of culture. Not that they think they are bisexual because of the culture, but they can be more honest to themselves and to the outside world. It was already there. Even in many gay haters of the past.

So do we now have to learn to be tolerant about bisexuals? As a next group that needs more acceptance? And what group will be next? The pedosexuals? Or the people that fall in love with an object, like for instance a bridge? Yes they too do exist, and what I learned in our society is that the amount of people who have a certain sexual preference is always much higher than we formerly believed. I personally know people who were born as male and who now want to change sex to female, and the other way around. Transgenders too, are with us in great numbers.

It's better not to teach children at schools, and adults in the mass media, to be tolerant to one particular group at the time, but to be overall tolerant. We should teach children to think for themselves, to always be skeptical, to question everything. In which case prejudices will be much harder to settle in the minds of people. Teach people to be nice to each other, because receiving love is better than receiving hate. And not teach them what should be considered normal in our present day. Because some things that are normal today were fifty years ago not normal. And one hundred years ago, it again was a different situation. And so on. Fifty years in the future things will be different too.

So think free. Sapere Aude. In that way, we still have 'prejudices' but only because of our lack of scientific knowledge on certain issues, not because of our (scientific) prejudices. And where I say prejudices, it's not always the best word for it. Many people have opinions just to fit in. They know better but act different than they should. This can of course be very harmful to some people, no to many people, including the conformists themselves. You almost have to feel sorry for them.

Be kind and be truthful. Love each other.

Note
[1] Column 'Niet bi-nair' by Tanja Ineke; Attitude Nederland, #009; May 2018