Valerie, with all due respect, I didn't come close to making a personal attack on you. I pointed something out about two particular things you said and I stand by it completely. So in more detail.....
You made the statement that by nature homosexuality and heterosexuality repel each other - your words. Repel, as in disgust, sicken, find offensive... pretty incendiary comment by any standard, that gay and straight peoples private actions disgust each other on a basic level. Understand me, I am not saying that there aren't people on both sides who feel like that. I'm saying that it's not the default majority opinion 'by nature'. Everyone has things that turn them on, make them go 'ewwww' and make them go 'meh'.Generally speaking, amongst gay and straight adults the reaction to the one they aren't is 'meh', from what I've seen. Not turned on, not retching. Neither uncomfortable or excited. It's not distasteful for me to imagine what the other side gets up to.... not always thought like that, but I grew out of being a young teenager. Most people I know are the same way. Not all; some get turned on too, and some feel a bit sick; but most.
Now, that spread doesn't even come close to covering the wide variety of reactions to various sexualities, and reasons for them, that I've come across. I've had conversations with gay men who don't get lesbian sex because ' it's not actually sex unless at least one penis is involved' (actual quote ). I know guys who got into violent fights as teenagers at the merest hint of suggesting they might be gay who are not only completely straight but now are totally happy to full on tongue kiss another man for a bet in full view of 500+ people without blinking. I can also think of some who absolutely squirm at the thought of anal sex, with either gender.... or what sex with another man would entail. Just like I can think of women who squirm at the thought of anal sex. Like I can think of a female friend who gags at the thought of oral sex on a woman... not because she is repelled by lesbianism, but because it's her biggest turn off. Girl on girl or guy on her, bring it up in conversation and watch her gag and turn green.
My point is that if someone is repulsed by a sexual act, the hetero or homosexual nature of the act or themselves shouldn't be first on the list of things to look at for reasons why they find it repulsive. And they certainly aren't inimical to each other.
Also, I never said the viewpoint that hetero and homosexuals find each other distasteful is prevalent.... I said it appears prevalent. Like it appears the world is flat because you can't see past the horizon. For an awful long time people in the west were told sex and sexuality were bad, sinful, to be indulged in reluctantly for procreation if at all.... and that has shaped attitudes for a long long time. Still does strongly for some people. It's part of the root of why homosexuality as a bad thing found its way into our society - if sex is for procreation and sinful and wicked even when for that purpose, then sex without the chance of that is even more sinful and wicked was the almost logic used. And that used to get drilled into us by every means possible for generations. When homosexuals were reluctantly accepted by the moral majority as actually existing, the teaching became even more focused. Unless you hate it, you must be gay. You have to find it repulsive or else there is something wrong with you. So even if you don't have a problem with it, you say you do if it comes up.
And that is where the idea that it's a natural state for homosexuality and heterosexuality to be repellant to each other comes from, rather than the much more logical concept that if something doesn't turn you on, in most cases it just... won't turn you on. Thats the stereotype, and there are a lot of people who are lost in it, and it will take generations more to fade away from being considered the norm. For the same reason it appears so prevalent - it's been a part of us for a very long time, and the people who are really invested in the whole deal are very, very loud. And publish a lot, and speak out a lot, and make it so that 9 out of every 10 things you can find on the subject are about how gay sex is bad, even when 70+% of people are fine with gay marriage. At least until very recently thats the mess everyone was raised in.
And it's something that you, in what you said that I took issue with, are doing a little bit to keep alive and kicking. Not, I think, out of deliberate malice or anything close. Just because of your experiences, as a part of the circus and your experiences with the people you make part of your life who have also been subject to the same pressures. And I'm not negating or questioning any of those experiences with what I said. I'm saying they spring from a false premise we've all been fed to some extent during our lives.
So no, I don't think it's fair to say that it's greatly distasteful for gay and straight people to imagine being intimate with each other, at least any differently than they would find imagining being intimate with someone of their preffered sex who was unattractive distasteful. And I in no way agree that it's the natural state of things that they automatically strongly repel each other. Apparently not agreeing with you on this and calling you on it amounts to a personal attack?
And since you asked, I've been bringing up why people are gay or straight with them for a long long time now. Asking awkward questions is something that came natural to me, and in the majority of cases? Well they don't have sex with people they aren't physically attracted to because they aren't attracted to them whether they are gay, straight or bi, not because they viscerally dislike the other option. And their emotional reaction to being in an intimate encounter or getting fondled by someone they aren't into really doesn't vary dependent on their gender.
