Posted on 11/11/2001 6:21:10 PM PST by LarryLied
When things get bad, people want big, burly guys around who can take charge and keep everyone safe. Lately, however, I've been finding the adulation of male firefighters and cops troubling, since hypermasculinity and homophobia often go hand in hand.War and disaster have a way of making the need for traditional male heroes more intense. When things get bad, people want big, burly guys around who can take charge and keep everyone safe. Lately, however, I've been finding the adulation of male firefighters and cops troubling, since hypermasculinity and homophobia often go hand in hand. In fact, the very professions being idolized have long harbored some of the worst harassers of gay people and women.
Like many other Americans, I have been in awe of the firefighters and other emergency personnel who rushed to the collapsing twin towers with seemingly no regard for their own personal safety. The stories of rescue workers who valiantly lost their lives in the line of duty have been inspiring and heartbreaking, like the fireman who raced to the World Trade Center even though he was off duty, or the police officer who was about to retire but decided he had to don his uniform one last time and head to the disaster site.
Indeed, until Sept. 11, a lot of people may have never considered the enormous danger involved in these kinds of jobs. Now many of us have began pondering the inner strength it takes to run directly into danger instead of away from it - all in an effort to save other people's lives. This intense selflessness and bravery have caught the country's imagination, turning firefighters and cops into instant icons. It's understandable why on Halloween firefighters' costumes sold like crazy across the country.
Two months after the tragedy, however, the incessant hero-worship is starting to wear on me. Many lesbians and gay men may, in fact, be finding themselves with conflicting feelings about these "manly" professions, which, though esteemed for bravery, have traditionally been bastions of homophobia and sexism.
In recent years, reports of firefighters bullying their gay and female co-workers have been widespread and persistent. In 1999, an internal review by Britain's Fire Service found the levels of homophobia and sexism among firefighters in that country "difficult to believe." Although there's been no such national report in the United States, numerous local incidents of harassment of gay and female firefighters suggest that findings over here might be very similar.
Only weeks before the terrorist assault, for example, gay firefighters in Boston joined female colleagues and firefighters of color in filing complaints against the city's fire department. One straight black female firefighter told the Associated Press horror stories of finding broken glass inside her work boots and having her oxygen mask and gloves stolen by fellow firefighters. The perpetrators of such "jokes," she said, "are more than just a few bad apples." The president of the local firefighters' union dismissed the allegations as "a lot of hype," but the severity of the charges has attracted the attention of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Many gay firefighters remain scared to come out on the job. In a new book, Gay Men, Straight Jobs, author Dan Woog had to interview a gay firefighter "in a large Northeastern city" pseudonymously to protect the man's identity. "I can't let these guys know me," the firefighter said, for fear of "verbal torture" and the end of his career. He told Woog that anti-gay jokes are an integral part of firehouse life and that no one in command does anything to change the intensely homophobic culture.
There have even been horrifying examples of emergency workers harassing the people they're supposed to help. It's hard to forget the story of Tyra Hunter, a transgendered hairdresser in Washington, D.C., who died a few years ago following a car crash. Hunter didn't get the treatment that might have saved her life because a fire department emergency worker on the scene got freaked out by her male genitalia.
Cops, too, have been notorious for their anti-gay actions. Just this past summer, the FBI began an investigation of an incident in San Antonio in which police beat and verbally abused three young Canadian tourists. "What are you fags doing in our city?" one cop allegedly demanded.
The world may have changed since Sept. 11, but some things definitely remain the same. A recent television interview featured two firefighters who had survived the towers' collapse, because one of them had bravely risked his life to pull his "brother" out of the rubble. To free the trapped man, he had to straddle his fellow firefighter in a sexually suggestive way. "I told him, you can beat the **** out of me later, after I get you outta here," the rescuer laughed.
It's doubtful that anti-gay sentiments like these will end unless those in charge of fire and police personnel take steps to institute change. And in a climate in which "manly men" are revered as near-gods, sensitivity training is likely to be low on the priority list.
Near-gods?
Did this gal just fly in from another planet? First time I have heard of this!
So, according to you -- if you haven't heard of it --
It doesn't happen.
Gotcha!
What the blazes is "verbal torture"?
...so hard to believe that right thinking people have not believed the lie of perverted sexual behavior as normal, or just an alternative lifestyle.
Fireman and Policeman, don't even believe Hillary is a New Yorker.
Sensitivity training...nah..how about a rai$e!...how about clear thinking once again...after 911...America, should not be the same...flush PC...and it's promoters!!!!!!!
Any old lewser screech will do.
I nominate this for quote of the day.
Meanwhile...just for those observing from afar...a few turgid words of "wisdom" from palpably tortured "George W. Bush" (R-Paranoidus Erectus)
From the thread "Why I am Proud to be homophobic:"
George W. Bush writes:
"This is actually rather funny. I am a man and recall very well that when I was younger, I would often experience spontaneous erections or erections for which I could discern no sexual stimulus other than wearing tight jeans or some such thing. Sometimes, there was absolutely no sexual stimulus at all. Although I never discussed the issue much with other boys or men, I've always had the general impression from conversation that other males, like me, consider their penis to have a mind of its own on some occasions. I do in fact occasionally still experience an inexplicable tumescence when working alone or some such entirely nonsexual activity. It doesn't mean that I'm a workophile or some sort of pervert. Likewise, I might be awake aroused from any variety of dream with or without sexual content. Again, it's meaningless and indicates merely that there is such a thing as stray sexual arousal, just part of being a man. Just as there is such a thing as an inadvertent arousal at sexual novelty such as that described by the study which claimed that "homophobes" were more likely to aroused by sodomite pornography than "non-homophobes".
"Many young men experience this. For instance, a man might be aroused by viewing sodomite films or bestiality or child pornography (all basically sodomite material) but that would not necessarily mean they are or ever will engage in such practices. A Christian man who finds himself aroused inadvertently by such material merely needs to be more cautious about it, not consider himself a bestialist or child molester or another variety of sodomite. I believe that there is a certain perversity in sexuality in that many people will be aroused by material depicting novel practices, however repellant and unthinkable for them to practice."
No further comments.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.