‘Is sexual attraction the point of being human’? Why is the Progressive Left trying to shame us into silence when we ask?

Mar 14, 2019 by Jill

by Gavin Ashenden:

Identity politics raises so many questions, we need a safe public space to talk about what they will do to our society and culture.

My regular readers will understand that I have been giving some thought recently to what it means when people make accusations of homophobia to silence the debate.

Further reading takes you into the world of mental illnesses. Phobias are the most common form of mental illness in the West. The psychiatrists explain one can add the suffix ’phobe’ onto to almost any noun to describe an aspect of mental illness. Going back to basics, it’s all about irrational fears that for complex and usually unconscious reasons, make you feel ill and impair your mental and physical well-being.

The lists of the phobias that people might suffer from are long, and usually Greek. Just casting a glance the heading ‘A’ and we find descriptions of people who suffer a variety of debilitating reactions. Acrophobes can’t cope with heights; amexophobes can’t bear to ride in cars; anthrophobes are made ill by flowers; asphenphosmphobes can’t be touched; arithmophobes panic when they encounter numbers. Typical symptoms of phobias can include nausea, trembling, rapid heartbeat, feelings of unreality, and being preoccupied with the fear object.

So what or who are homophobes? I suppose there might be some people who suffer nausea or rapid heartbeat when meeting a homosexual (leaving aside the question that without ‘gaydar’ how would they know), but I suspect that there are very few. Because at this point we have moved in our public discussion from illness to insult.

The movement from illness to insult follows the shift from psychiatry to politics, Why politics? Because ‘Identity Politics’ which defines people according to membership of a group, and usually one defined by sexual attraction, has become the new platform for the storm troopers who are driving the culture wars we are struggling with. The language of mental illness has been hijacked to be used as a political weapon to accuse someone of being ethically ill, or socially septic. And why? To close down any conversation the about the issues and implications? Yet the changes this culture war has brought about are immense.