We keep being told that the Gay Movement is all about everyone’s right to be accepted for who they are. The movement has been successful because gay people are now recognised not just for their achievements but, more importantly, also for their identity. The latter is important because we now supposedly live in a society where being openly gay and being upfront about it no longer puts you at a disadvantage. Gay people are now able to assert their identity and still be able to accept fair treatment in modern societies.
It is therefore only fair that gay people, in return, be upfront about who they are. It is not right to conceal an aspect of the nature of one’s identity when said aspect is a relevant bit of information in a transaction. Banks require that you disclose prior felony convictions when applying for a loan. Visa applicants are required to present medical records before being approved entry into a jurisdiction. Priests invite guests in a wedding to “speak now or forever hold your peace” before pronouncing a couple effectively bonded in marriage.
If the object of your affections is clearly a heterosexual person, then it is only fair to assume that that person expects you to be a person of the opposite sex if he or she were to entertain your advances or invitation to progress a relationship. There is of course room to negotiate compromises. However, decent people understand that negotiations that yield the best outcomes are ones where both parties are upfront about what they bring to the table. If one party disguises or masks something relevant to said negotiation, he or she is inviting trouble.
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Billy Joel was wrong when he lamented how “honesty” is “such a lonely word”. The fact is, it is an overused word that enjoys lots of company. People drop the word so often that it elicits more eyesrolls than genuine awe. It is an ironic feature in the vocabulary of liars. Honesty is not a lonely word. It is a party animal.
The true lonely word is dishonesty. The word hardly ever gets used. Nobody calls out the simplest acts of dishonesty. In many specific cases making the news today, deceiving a prospective sexual partner about the nature of one’s true sex is never regarded as an act of dishonesty. Instead, the lying parties are excused because they are said to “identify” with the lie they play on the board in the mating games they join.
This is not to say “identifying” with a preferred gender is lying. The deceit begins when you turn the expression of that preference into a lie when pursuing or inviting a prospective partner to dance.
If we are to expect full acceptance and equality, all parties need to take personal accountability for the choices they make. Choosing to be dishonest has its consequences. Those consequences could be avoided if people are not deceitful about the choices they make and when society learns to to excuse lying under the guise of upholding inclusiveness. There is no excuse for lying. There are only consequences.
benign0 is the Webmaster of GetRealPhilippines.com.
This “nasty thought” crossed my mind: do we have a law against impersonation in the general sense? Most laws just mention specific impersonations, such as online impersonation and impersonation of veterans. But maybe we should extend it to gender impersonation? So gays insisting that they are the other sex just to get sex can be held liable? It can be just a civil case, just so people like Pemberton don’t need to resort to violence because they are frustrated that they have no legal resort against someone who deceived them.
Somehow a “nasty thought” also crossed my mind: if you’re truly wishing for something like that then why don’t GRP bloggers try start blogging using their true identities and try not hiding behind avatars.
Paul Farol is doing it and he isn’t shy standing by what he writes here. He got a backlash with what he has written about his stand in his ABS-CBN articles. He knows it’s quite unpopular among GRP bloggers but he has the balls to face the critics.
If you qualify impersonation also as a form of a lie then you can count yourself in, isn’t that logical?
About Laude and Pemberton:
Scammers and deceptors are everywhere. They are just like everyday accidents ever present outside of your shelter, that, can be avoided if you utilize your natural instruments of common sense, preparation, power of discernment and judgement, the freedom to choose, to accept or to refuse. You just have to ask yourself, who has the control of the situation?
People’s frustration, I suppose, is not a sufficient and valid excuse to draft a law something for this cause. Pemberton is not special. What he needs is mental stability and anger-management. He can work on that himself. As a foreign visitor with military training, he is trained to kill but he has taken it to heart too soon for the wrong reason. He failed to observe and to expect the unexpected. He’s not ready for war yet.
As we’re often told, it’s unfortunate that we reap what we sow and that’s for both of them. Though Pemberton is the luckier one to get out of it alive and regained his freedom, but, with a much diminished honor and low self-esteem. He can’t expect a hero’s welcome when he gets back home.
I’ve never been comfortable lying about anything. It’s more a practical issue for me, but I’m not for moral hypocrisy either. Honesty makes a potential relationship functional, and you get to “fix” or adjust to what’s needed along the way. I appreciate honesty more than meaningless pleasantries. I find that to be intimate involves honesty.
I have no quarrel with homosexual people; whether they are : gays , lesbians; or whatever sexual orientations they have…what I don’t like are deceitful people, who conceal their true sexual orientation, in exchange : for relationship , for favor, or for monetary compensation.
Up to now, we cannot understand , homosexuality. It occurs, in animals, in plants, or in whatever creation, we do not know…so, we must not condemn, what we cannot understand…
Live and let live !
ALL RELATIONSHIPS are deceptive and due to this, human relationships do not last. ALL are bound to end sometime, sooner or later. The relationships that last DO last because of what their religion is telling them and not because of their own choosing. Rarely do people in a relationship stick honestly and sincerely to their partner. Be it a gay relationship, a straight relationship, a friendship, etc. Expect the relationship to end. Understand once and for all that NOTHING lasts due to the Law of Impermanence. People suffer owing to their idea that everything AND everyone is forever.
Perhaps that’s a conclusion somebody can make at a certain stage or point in their life. If by deception you mean “plastikan” then yes that usually happens. It is rare for people to be in near perfect harmony with each other.
Not me…??