Russia prison chief reassures inmates yoga won't make them gay

boing
21

When reading your reply, my initial feeling was that you’ve attacked me unprovoked from left field. I wasn’t invalidating shit; and NOTHING makes me angrier than someone else telling me what I mean by something. So I’m still pissed off as I write this. I’ll try to remain civil.

Are you saying sexual orientation is a choice? Nothing to do with genetic predisposition one way or another? If so, you’re in great company with all of the “gay rehabilitation” folks.

From my experience, a person’s sexual orientation is a spectrum that can shift over time, with each individual’s spectrum range being unique to themselves. Some can travel all over the place, while others might never shift at all.

Participating in yoga won’t create a desire that’s not already there. Yoga won’t make you gay.

5 Likes
22

I’d like to advocate charitability here. “X makes you gay” is, as far as I know, always a weapon used by homophobes to control people, never a helpful tip for people who are interested in trying out a different way of living. Arguing that sexual orientation is in-built rather than environment acquired has been a tool against that.

The ultimate truth of the matter will have to be compatible with several seemingly contradictory ideas. But “You can’t makes someone gay” is a meaningful stab at the truth, while “Yoga makes you gay” is outright false.

7 Likes
23

Neither. Yo-gation.

4 Likes
24

I guess if you’re going to spend years or decades of your life locked up with a bunch of other men it doesn’t hurt to be a little flexible.

7 Likes
25

Yes, if there’s one thing that causes riots in prisons, it’s prisoners getting too much sex. And if there’s one thing that is notorious for leading to gayness sex between men, it’s yoga, and not, you know, prison.

4 Likes
26

Though it could lead to more prison escapes.

Which is an interesting thought experiment. Is it cheaper to make prisoners fat so you can space bars farther apart and walls shorter? Factor in things like early prisoner death, it might be a reason to ban yoga. On the other hand, reinforced furniture ain’t cheap either.

27

Look on the bright side tovarisch, if it does turn them gay you’ve already got them locked up-- just add a few more years to their sentences for the crime of being gay, eventually they will learn their lessons and stop it with the gay. Problem solved.

1 Like
28

image
image800×596 33.2 KB

6 Likes
29

being locked up in a like, totally obscure prison like you probably haven’t heard of is pretty hipstery. there’s even a cute dolphin and pink walls! #aesthetic

2 Likes
30

Yeah but in some cases they don’t mean like Gay gay, it is more like “ghey”.

(Obvs. I am being silly but often there is an undercurrent of misogyny to what on the surface is straight guy bro humor homophobia…)

31

DNA is not determinism. Everything we are or do is reflected in your DNA, but it doesn’t make us do it - we always could have been someone else. Gene expression changes constantly with experience.

3 Likes
32

Thank you for your patience. I can understand how you felt attacked by what I wrote, and I was truly taking issue narrowly with a very specific idea. I amplify a little more here, and a tad less brashly.

Biological determinism of social development is heinous. You get how race is a social, not biological, construct? How there’s no genetic test for race? No allele that makes you a particular racial category, and none that excludes you from a racial category? Same thing for sexuality. The concept “gay” is a smidge over a century old. The identity politic about biological determinism cuts both ways.

Little science fiction exercise for you: what happens to, say, insurance coverage, or anti-discrimination protections if an individual doesn’t “carry the gene?”

Thank you.

Yes.

Predisposition ≠ “born gay”, and predisposition ≠ “determinism.”

(And, incidentally, “choice” ≠ “I think I will go with the Reuben, with a side of chef salad, today, thanks!”)

Um… Pensketch, I have been gay-bashed, including by a parent when I was a child. I have been threatened with literal-not-figurative death by a parent and by random strangers in broad daylight for being queer. One of my great honors was having my work cited in over a dozen state supreme court lawsuits by those fighting for same sex marriage rights, and in briefs to the SCOTUS case in 2015.

You are yourself, if I recall correctly, a parent of queer children, and reflect many of the prevailing pro-queer values here in the forum. Can we both agree that the ex-gay folks are fucked as fucked can be?

Amen. Also important to recognize that the concepts that we construct our identities around themselves have histories larger than any individual. More young folks and folks in particular geographies are ID’ing as “queer” and as “trans”: that’s not because some kind of population bottleneck caused an amplification of a gene for Teh Gay. :slight_smile:

What, not even a little?! :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

I apologize for coming off a jerk.

5 Likes
33

Yes. Yes that is very good. Hopefull my reply to @Pensketch is a tad bit more in that direction.

I agree. I also think “biology” is included in X.

3 Likes
34

Theological professor Alexander Dvorkin wrote a document suggesting yoga could cause uncontrolled sexual arousal and homosexuality in detention centers, leading to riots, the newspaper Moskovsky Komsomlets reported. Senator Elena Mizulina, who is known for her conservative views, used the document to appeal to the Prosecutor General’s Office to check the legality of the yoga classes, and asked for them to be suspended, according to the paper.

This would only make MAGA-ers trust Trump even more.

35

Yoga’s not the problem. Putin is the problem. Riding a bear shirtless? GAY!

2 Likes
36

[quote=“Scientist, post:31, topic:142255”]
Gene expression[/quote]

image https://pmcvariety.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/gene-wilder-willy-wonka-dead-3.jpg?w=670&h=377&crop=1

1 Like
37

What’s wrong with making inmates gay?

1 Like
38

Is this one of those cases where one of us is using the term “sexual orientation” in an idiosyncratic way?

1 Like
39

Thank you for your follow up response, and some background about the path you’ve traveled. And yes, the ex-gay folks are fucked as fucked can be.

Some of my background: In addition to being a parent of two queer children, I’ve spent at least two-thirds of my 51 years denying my sexual orientation because I wanted to fit in with the people around me. Be “normal.” So, I would agree that accepting my sexual orientation was a “choice” – as was trying to deny it – but neither choice changed my sexual orientation.

So from my life perspective, the only choice is acceptance or rejection. Beyond that, you’re going to like what you like. And if you’re unhappy about what you like, you might lash out at the people who are happy with what they like.

I agree, but I also don’t feel that eliminates the possibility that a person’s sexual identity might be genetic; or at least the spectrum they can fall within. And I acknowledge that the environment a person is raised in can have a narrowing effect on that spectrum. And depending on the environment, that could lead to internalized homophobia that surfaces in ugly ways, up to and including rising through the ranks of the religious-right leadership.

I believe the increase in queer identified individuals that we are seeing is because, for what may end up being a brief moment in time, it’s (somewhat) safe to actually be who you are in some countries. The only way to find out if there has truly been an upswing would be if we could go back through the years/centuries and find out how many people were hiding who they were when it wasn’t safe/safer. Back when, to fit in, they would have lived a straight life, possibly had kids, and been miserable.

Also, adding to the situation is the creation of the internet, where people who used to be isolated have been able to connect with people like themselves; for good and for bad (looking at you, alt-right and incels).

Did it make someone a little gay, or were they already a little gay and it drew it out? I’m pretty sure it was the latter, but the only person that has a chance of knowing is the person it “happened” to, and not someone with a theory and an agenda in a country where being gay is a crime.

And I apologize for implying you were aligned with the ex-gay “homosexuality is a choice” assholes. I’m often a jerk (and worse), so I won’t hold it against you.

7 Likes
40

I think both Pensketch and Lexicat should get meritorious service awards for disagreeing while still being nice to one another.

10 Likes