Gay community

[mrsmelly]

1 hour ago, churchward said:

I would say neither but the Freemasons are a kind of community/club that people join but does that mean they cannot also be part of the wider society?

 

My retort was in response to a claim that White Police Officers do not have an association they can join when clearly they can and do.

That can be done as well why on earth do you and others think wishing to be part of a club/community excludes the person from mixing with others as well?

 

I belong to the Morris Minor owners club does that mean I must only associate or socialise with fellow members?

Let's be honest the freemasons plug is nonsense. Any one can join the freemasons. You will find that members of the black police officers association are black or a shade of. If some white officer were to start a white police officers association there woul be absolute uproar.

[HenryFreeman]

2 minutes ago, mrsmelly said:

If some white officer were to start a white police officers association there woul be absolute uproar.

 

Why would a white officer start a white police officer's association? He/she can be a member of the black police officer's association if he/she wants to join a club.

[tree monkey]

5 minutes ago, mrsmelly said:

Let's be honest the freemasons plug is nonsense. Any one can join the freemasons. You will find that members of the black police officers association are black or a shade of. If some white officer were to start a white police officers association there woul be absolute uproar.

Everyone, really, even idiots like me? Standards must have dropped.

 

Funnily enough my Dad was invited, Dad told them to get stuffed

[blackrose]

6 minutes ago, mrsmelly said:

If some white officer were to start a white police officers association there woul be absolute uproar.

 

But it could be argued that the entire UK police force is largely a white officers association to start with.

[mrsmelly]

3 minutes ago, tree monkey said:

 

 

Funnily enough my Dad was invited, Dad told them to get stuffed

As was I and I gave the same answer. I hate clubs lol.

[churchward]

23 minutes ago, mrsmelly said:

Let's be honest the freemasons plug is nonsense. Any one can join the freemasons. You will find that members of the black police officers association are black or a shade of. If some white officer were to start a white police officers association there woul be absolute uproar.

Not from me. I wonder how many of the Police in the freemasons are non-white?

[mrsmelly]

15 minutes ago, churchward said:

Not from me. I wonder how many of the Police in the freemasons are non-white?

Similar numbers to the KKK 🤣

[peterboat]

10 hours ago, wandering said:

The dominant group will always feel victimised by minorities doing things that don’t include them. Being pro gay isn’t anti straight. Just like being pro Black isn’t anti white. They feel left out. I call this a taste of their own medicine. A group of gays is seen as a slight to them in some way hence the need to say “why can’t you just do what the rest of us do” (aka conform and submit). We aren’t the rest of you. It is types like this who make us make a point of our differences. I recall once someone saying to me, as though I should take it as a compliment that “you’re not really super gay” as though being gay were a bad thing. I’d be happy never to mention who I sleep with or what I do behind closed doors ever again. I agree, I don’t think we are special. I have heterosexual friends and mix with them and never does who we sleep with come up in discussion (probably how many heterosexuals prefer it). But they understand and empathise with why I need to find others who are gay. Because guess what? Most people aren’t. I could misinterpret a situation with a man and end up in hospital or worse, dead. Attacks on gays are on the rise. I don’t attend Pride or get involved in the politics of the LGBT. But I don’t, continually, proclaim my lack of understanding of such things as though it contributes any value to the discussion which is being done in this very thread. Calls of “I don’t understand X, Y or Z” just highlights your ignorance. It is 2023. You have all the information at your finger tips. How about we drop the “I don’t understand why they congregate” façade and say what you really mean? 
 

Gays want to meet other gays and have sex, surprise surprise. Clutch your pearls elsewhere. It’s so bloody tiring. 
 

I hope OP does find other boat folk who are gay and gets a chance to connect with them. I know I’ve thought about it on my travels as a solo gay vagabond boater. Seeing a rainbow flag sticker in a boat window makes me relaxed because it signals to me they’re my sort. I know this may be novel to other people who dONt UnDeRstANd but it’s small gestures and signs like this that make me feel comfortable in a world that wants to shut me up, hide me away or, worse, blend in. 

Its being different that makes us interesting! Long may it continue 

[Paul C]

Welcome to the forum chris69, as you can see, canal/lock infrastructure isn't the only thing which is largely unchanged since the 18th century around here.

[chris69]

Haha !!. Cheers Paul. 

[nb Innisfree]

21 hours ago, nb Innisfree said:

😱

 

Edited September 4, 2023 by nb Innisfree

[frangar]

5 hours ago, zenataomm said:

My lodge had Asians, so you're either ignorant or deliberately stirring things.

I recently worked on a masons conference….don’t stress I wasn’t obviously allowed in the hall during the trouser rolling section…let’s just say it was a less than multi cultural audience….less than 1% I’d hazard a guess. 

[MtB]

3 hours ago, frangar said:

I recently worked on a masons conference….

 

A friend of mine is a mason.

 

Works for CRT. He does a lot of lock restoration, mostly making the coping stones I suspect. 

 

 

[Peanut]

3 hours ago, MtB said:

 

A friend of mine is a mason.

 

Works for CRT. He does a lot of lock restoration, mostly making the coping stones I suspect. 

 

 

They would be right and square.

[wandering]

It’s worth pointing out that not even 60 years ago—in my parents’ lifetime, in my lesbian aunts’ lifetime, maybe even in some of your lifetimes—heterosexuals put laws in place that would make me illegal. I could be punished, beaten and imprisoned. That isn’t ancient history. This still happens in some parts of the world. The reverberation of this regressive practice is still felt by people like me. It was your heterosexual police force who would entrap us like we were wild savages, they would raid our gathering spots, unable to leave us alone, veritably foaming at the mouth to oppress and subjugate. They would pretend to be like us so they could hurt us. Alan Turing helped Britain to win the Second World War and his reward from the heterosexual majority was castration. Truly and utterly shameful.  It was this society where even popular homosexuals feared being themselves. Kenneth Williams, who the British public adored for his role in the Carry On films and Just a Minute, could never feel truly comfortable with himself because of the society he was born in, despite the deep public adoration for him and his talent. I posit his profound self-loathing was created by a society that hated who he really was and loved his created persona on stage and film. When we are told to just integrate, I dare say why don’t you lot make a society that is welcoming and caring for people like me so that this so-called integration is possible? Why is it incumbent upon me to do that? You create laws to criminalise me, you castrate me, you threaten and hurt me. What are you doing to help me integrate? Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. 
 

[frangar]

Just now, wandering said:

It’s worth pointing out that not even 60 years ago—in my parents’ lifetime, in my lesbian aunts’ lifetime, maybe even in some of your lifetimes—heterosexuals put laws in place that would make me illegal. I could be punished, beaten and imprisoned. That isn’t ancient history. This still happens in some parts of the world. The reverberation of this regressive practice is still felt by people like me. It was your heterosexual police force who would entrap us like we were wild savages, they would raid our gathering spots, unable to leave us alone, veritably foaming at the mouth to oppress and subjugate. They would pretend to be like us so they could hurt us. Alan Turing helped Britain to win the Second World War and his reward from the heterosexual majority was castration. Truly and utterly shameful.  It was this society where even popular homosexuals feared being themselves. Kenneth Williams, who the British public adored for his role in the Carry On films and Just a Minute, could never feel truly comfortable with himself because of the society he was born in, despite the deep public adoration for him and his talent. I posit his profound self-loathing was created by a society that hated who he really was and loved his created persona on stage and film. When we are told to just integrate, I dare say why don’t you lot make a society that is welcoming and caring for people like me so that this so-called integration is possible? Why is it incumbent upon me to do that? You create laws to criminalise me, you castrate me, you threaten and hurt me. What are you doing to help me integrate? Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. 
 

I have been shouted at on a recent Pride March by religious types telling me what might happen to me….along with the other 1500-2000 people on the march….thanks to strength in numbers we were able to ignore it and indeed laugh it off….now imagine the same scenario when you are just a couple or single person walking down the street getting abuse…trust me it’s very uncomfortable at the least….yet it’s still happening all too regularly….I have trans friends who were able to be themselves at the weekend thanks to pride….normally they are scared to leave the house because of what might happen to them….and this is a supposedly diverse city in 2023….but apparently we need to “integrate”…..

[LadyG]

I think @wandering is getting carried away, obviously the UK has changed the law, quite a few years ago,  and other countries have other ideas, but you are not likely to change attitudes by posting like this on this forum.

By integration I mean just get on with your life. There are people who are homophobic and you are not going to change them.

Edited September 5, 2023 by LadyG

[wandering]

1 minute ago, LadyG said:

I think @wandering is getting carried away, obviously the UK has changed the law, quite a few years ago,  and other countries have other ideas, but you are not likely to change attitudes by posting on this forum.

By integration I mean just get on with your life. 

 

Carried away with what? I’m just stating the truth of what happens. Perhaps you dislike it because it reveals something about yourself and your kind but to characterise what I am saying as though I am getting carried away with myself is disingenuous. I’m perfectly calm and reasonable. Next time, say what you mean clearly to avoid misinterpretation. I agree that your comment is laced with hostility and now you’re back tracking and saying I am getting carried away with myself. I see what you’re doing.  Get a grip. You’ve revealed yourself to me. You’re not the arbiter of other people’s enlightenment either. Don’t act so bold. 

[Annie cariad]

Well me mates gay, freemason,v lockie and lives on a wide beam . Had to tell him he has no place on the canals now ....

[LadyG]

PS I've put wandering on my ignore list. 

(Does nothing for the cause)

Edited September 5, 2023 by LadyG

[HenryFreeman]

1 minute ago, LadyG said:

PS I've put wandering on my ignore list. 

 

Not sure why you need to announce that.

[Arthur Marshall]

23 minutes ago, LadyG said:

I think @wandering is getting carried away, obviously the UK has changed the law, quite a few years ago,  and other countries have other ideas, but you are not likely to change attitudes by posting like this on this forum.

By integration I mean just get on with your life. There are people who are homophobic and you are not going to change them.

As it's a discussion forum, I'd have thought that opened up the possibility that ideas expressed here might be thought about, and so attitudes might indeed change, if only a bit. You never know, although admittedly the politics section isn't a good example of it happening!

[LadyG]

Just now, HenryFreeman said:

 

Not sure why you need to announce that.

Read all the drivel and targetted personal attacks which have no place on this boating forum.

[HenryFreeman]

On 03/09/2023 at 12:47, LadyG said:

Can't you just integrate?

 

Such as this drivel?

18 minutes ago, Annie cariad said:

Well me mates gay, freemason,v lockie and lives on a wide beam . Had to tell him he has no place on the canals now ....

 

A vlockie? And you're still mates with him?!

[tree monkey]

57 minutes ago, wandering said:

It’s worth pointing out that not even 60 years ago—in my parents’ lifetime, in my lesbian aunts’ lifetime, maybe even in some of your lifetimes—heterosexuals put laws in place that would make me illegal. I could be punished, beaten and imprisoned. That isn’t ancient history. This still happens in some parts of the world. The reverberation of this regressive practice is still felt by people like me. It was your heterosexual police force who would entrap us like we were wild savages, they would raid our gathering spots, unable to leave us alone, veritably foaming at the mouth to oppress and subjugate. They would pretend to be like us so they could hurt us. Alan Turing helped Britain to win the Second World War and his reward from the heterosexual majority was castration. Truly and utterly shameful.  It was this society where even popular homosexuals feared being themselves. Kenneth Williams, who the British public adored for his role in the Carry On films and Just a Minute, could never feel truly comfortable with himself because of the society he was born in, despite the deep public adoration for him and his talent. I posit his profound self-loathing was created by a society that hated who he really was and loved his created persona on stage and film. When we are told to just integrate, I dare say why don’t you lot make a society that is welcoming and caring for people like me so that this so-called integration is possible? Why is it incumbent upon me to do that? You create laws to criminalise me, you castrate me, you threaten and hurt me. What are you doing to help me integrate? Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. 
 

Well said.

 

I wasn't going to get involved in the thread because I'm not gay and I have no idea of any such community you asked about but because some of the prehistoric responses I thought it worth saying not everyone holds such views, good luck in finding what you are after.

5 minutes ago, LadyG said:

Read all the drivel and targetted personal attacks which have no place on this boating forum.

A fairly innocent question was responded to by some posters questioning his request which then led into an argument about his culture/lifestyle/life choices, are you surprised at a slightly defensive response, which as far as I can see contained no targeted attacks just an opinion on society in general