Posted on 02/11/2003 12:21:42 PM PST by Right Wing Co-Conspirator
HOW GAY IS OSCAR?
I guess we wll know the answer to that, but this year's nominees are almost a hetero-shut-out. An unusually well-informed movie buff friend sent me the following email:
Today's Oscar nominations must set a record of sorts for gays in Hollywood. Best Picture nominee "Chicago" was produced by Craig Zadan and Neil Meron, both openly gay, while another Best Picture nominee, "The Hours," had openly-gay Scott Rudin as producer. (The Pulitzer Prize winning book on which it is based was, of course, written by openly gay Michael Cunningham.) Two of the nominees for Best Director, Rob Marshall of "Chicago" and Pedro Almodovar of "Talk To Me", are openly gay. Nicole Kidman is nominated as Best Actress for her portrayal of bisexual Virginia Woolf in "The Hours," Ed Harris is nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of a gay man with AIDS in the same film, while Meryl Streep is nominated for Best Supporting Actress as his lesbian best friend. Selma Hayek is up for Best Actress for her portrayal of bisexual painter Frida Kahlo in "Frida". Pedro Almodovar is also nominated for Best Original Screenplay, where he is joined by openly gay Todd Haynes, who wrote and directed "Far From Heaven." Juliette Moore is nominated as Best Actress for that film, in which she plays the wife of a closeted gay man (played by Dennis Quaid, whose omission from the list of nominees will be noted as one of this year's Oscar gaffes). Another original screenplay nomination went to "Y Tu Mam Tambien," in which two young straight men end up having sex with each other. "Lilo & Stitch," whose co-director Dean DeBlois is openly gay, is up for Best Animated Feature. Kander and Ebb are up for Best Song (as is Eminem). And the Dutch film nominated for Best Foreign Film, "Zus & Zo," is a comedy about how a family deals with the news that the brother they all thought was gay decides to marry a woman. Stephen Daldry did not direct it.
Note that this is all related to people who are openly gay. The closet is crumbling - even in that most privately homophobic enclave, Hollywood
I guess that little slam on the Clintons about AIDS did the trick.
Public health records demonstrate that homosexuals, representing 2 percent of America's population, suffer vastly disproportionate percentages of several of America's most serious STDs, with incidences among homosexuals of diseases like gonorrhea, syphilis, hepatitis A and B, cytomegalovirus, shigellosis, giardiasis, amoebic bowel disease and herpes far exceeding their presence in the general population. These are due to common homosexual practices that include fellatio, anilingus, digital stimulation of the rectum and ingestion of urine and feces.
An exhaustive study in The New England Journal of Medicine, medical literature's only study reporting on homosexuals who kept sexual "diaries," indicated the average homosexual ingests the fecal material of 23 different men each year. The same study indicated the number of annual sexual partners averaged nearly 100. Homosexuals averaged, per year, fellating 106 different men and swallowing 50 of their seminal ejaculations, and 72 penile penetrations of the anus. (Corey, L, and Holmes, K.K., "Sexual Transmission of Hepatitis A in Homosexual Men," New England Journal of Medicine, 1980, vol 302: 435-438; as quoted in "Homosexuality and Civil Rights," Tony Marco, 1992).
A study by McKusick, et al., of 655 San Francisco homosexuals reported that only 24 percent of the sample claimed to have been "monogamous" during the past year, and of this 24 percent, 5 percent drank urine, 7 percent engag-ed in sex involving insertion of a fist in their rectums, 33 percent ingested feces, 53 percent swallowed semen and 59 percent received semen in their rectums in the month just previous to the survey ("AIDS and Sexual Behavior Reported by Homosexual Men in San Francisco," American Journal of Public Health, December 1985, 75: 493-496; quoted in "Homosexuality and Civil Rights," Tony Marco, 1992).
Lesbians show similar patterns of high venereal disease incidence relative to the general population. They are 19 times more likely to have had syphilis, twice as likely to have had genital warts, four times as likely to have had scabies, seven times more likely to have had infection from vaginal contact, 29 times more likely to have had oral infection from vaginal contact and 12 times more likely to have had an oral infection from penile contact ("Medical Aspects of Homosexuality," Institute for the Scientific Investigation of Sexuality, 1985, Jaffe and Keewhan, et al.; quoted in "Homosexuality and Civil Rights," Tony Marco, 1992).
AIDS research by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control reported that the typical homosexual interviewed claimed to have had more than 500 different sexual partners in a lifetime. Considered by themselves, the AIDS victims in this study averaged more than 1,100 lifetime sexual partners. Some reported as many as 20,000. Studies reported by A-P. Bell, M.S. Weinberg and S.K. Hammersmith in the book "Sexual Preference" (Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1981) indicated that only 3 percent of homosexuals had fewer than 10 lifetime sexual partners. Only about 2 percent could be classified as either monogamous or semi-monogamous (from "Homosexuality and Civil Rights," Tony Marco, 1992).
And Lilo & Stitch deserves to win regardless of who made it.
Webster's dictionary4 defines 'homosexual' by "sexual attraction toward [or relations with] a person of the same sex" (p. 464). Yet as both the FRI and the Kinsey studies demonstrate, sexual flexibility rather than a fixed interest in or exclusive performance with members of the same sex is characteristic of 'homosexuals.' Almost all 'homosexuals,' in fact, manage to have sex with the opposite sex.
For example, Laumann, et al.5, reported that, of men with male sex partners since puberty, a mere 10% reported only having had sex with other males, and of women with female sex partners since puberty, only 5% reported only having had sex with other females. For those who reported same-sex partners since age 18, about 20% of such men and 10% of such women only had sex with others of their sex. Put in population terms, Laumann, et al. estimated that only 0.6% of "all men" and 0.2% of "all women" have, since puberty, only had sex with their own sex (p. 312).
Given the apparent changeability of human sexual behavior, the term 'homosexual' -- rather than describing 'a condition' or 'state of being' that 'causes' sexual desire to fixate on one's same sex -- seems an inappropriate label for most of those who have same-sex sex. The term certainly does not seem to fit ex-homosexuals, many of whom express no further interest in sex with their sex. Further, the sexual flexibility that the great majority of 'homosexuals' exhibit over their lifetimes does not fit the 'compulsive' nuances associated with the term 'homosexual' either.
As an alternative to 'homosexual,' if we were to consider individuals with a history of sexual relations with both sexes, or who could have sex with both sexes, or who desired to have sex with both sexes, as "omnisexual," very few, if any, 'homosexuals,' would fail to qualify. By shedding the relatively recent, largely psychiatric, and political term 'homosexual' for 'omnisexual' we might get rid of the implication that 'homosexuals' have an unchangeable 'orientation' -- a notion clearly at odds with the empirical reality.
In fact, the Kinsey Institute's use of "sexual preference" far better matches the sexual choices that omnisexuals make. And when an omnisexual decided to quit homosexual activity for heterosexual activity, or changed his mind again, it would not appear linguistically odd, but would instead describe the situation neatly. Better still, there would not be the same 'mystery' about the choice, involving often untestable theories about 'unconscious needs,' parental miscues, or hormonal or genetic differences. Rather, sexual flexibility would be seen as something that omnisexuals often exhibit.
If perhaps only 3-4% of adults have at some time in their lives either engaged in homosexuality or would currently declare themselves interested in doing so by saying they were 'homosexual' or 'bisexual,' and maybe an additional 1-2% or so of the remaining adults are 'ex-homosexuals,' then perhaps 4-6% of adults have been 'homosexuals' or homosexually involved at some point in their lives.
Additionally, about 1-2% of current heterosexuals say that they have some homosexual desire -- i.e., are homosexually 'tempted.' It therefore seems possible that the total pool of adults who are, and who always have been, exclusively heterosexual may be on the order of 92-94%. But perhaps 6-8% of the population is omnisexual -- these individuals can be and often are involved in homosexual relationships at some time.
What Is "A Homosexual" excerpt
Kinsey's published data reveal that homosexuals are much more willing to "try it" with an animal, a child, a man, many women, or for that matter "something completely different."
A good argument can be made that the "homosexual identity" we talk about today is a recent phenomenon, gaining some currency just before the Second World War, but not really "jelling" until the 1960s-1970s when its social construction was polished.
After all, openly gay producers and directors have been around at least out of the closet since the 1960's, more or less. I do know that David Geffen (one of the founders of Dreamworks SKG) is openly gay at least since the late 1980's; one of the co-creators of Xena: Warrior Princess is openly lesbian; and I believe Elton John came out of the closet in the late 1980's.
Mind you, there are some gays that overly flaut their sexual preference, much to everyone's detriment. George Michael, formerly of the band WHAM, is definitely in this category.
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