this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2025
2064 points (98.8% liked)

memes

16396 readers
3933 users here now

Community rules

1. Be civilNo trolling, bigotry or other insulting / annoying behaviour

2. No politicsThis is non-politics community. For political memes please go to !politicalmemes@lemmy.world

3. No recent repostsCheck for reposts when posting a meme, you can only repost after 1 month

4. No botsNo bots without the express approval of the mods or the admins

5. No Spam/AdsNo advertisements or spam. This is an instance rule and the only way to live.

A collection of some classic Lemmy memes for your enjoyment

Sister communities

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] x4740N@lemmy.world 185 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (5 children)

The absolute gall they have to call it a "lifestyle" like people choose to live that way one day

It's not a fucking lifestyle, LGBTQ+ people just are and they exist

They don't choose to suddenly be that way one day, they have been that way their entire life and discover that about themselves

[–] TexasDrunk@lemmy.world 103 points 3 days ago (3 children)

"Ah, but they choose to act on it! You see, my old preacher struggled with gay thoughts all the time because of Satan. He told us so nearly every Sunday. But did he act on them? No! He was straight, just as god intended.

So those people having gay thoughts are CHOOSING to be gay when they could pray and get a wife and have children like the lord said."

-Some dipshit I know

[–] juliebean@lemmy.zip 79 points 3 days ago (3 children)

"He resisted his homosexual urges, and remained faithful to his heterosexual wife until the very day he shot himself."

[–] Dasus@lemmy.world 42 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

"You know what I'm talking about; the homosexual fantasies the devil constantly sends into everyone's heads since they became teenagers. Those ones. ... What do you mean 'no'?"

[–] TexasDrunk@lemmy.world 10 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Tangentially related, or at least it made me think of it.

Orson Scott Card said this:

Ender’s childhood is based, albeit loosely, on my own; his relationship with Peter and Valentine is based, not on my actual relationship with my older brother and sister, but rather on the way I conceived those relationships to be when I was Ender’s age. Ender’s revised understanding of Peter late in life parallels in emotion the same revision I went through in my teens as I discovered… my childish view of my older brother was hopelessly wrong

For those that don't know, Peter abused the hell out of Ender. Not a huge spoiler. Another time he said this:

The dark secret of homosexual society … is how many homosexuals first entered into that world through a disturbing seduction or rape or molestation or abuse

Then he went on to write several of the same character. Either homosexual or asexual who takes a wife in order to raise children. But it's literally never about the woman. Anton was mostly open about his sexuality but married a woman. Ender had no sexual urges (there was a lot of underage homo-adjacent stuff and some sister stuff, but not necessarily gay) until he married. And did he marry her for her? Nope. The first thing he thinks of is how her 6 kids need him. Ansset is gay and married a woman. It's pretty obvious he believes a lot of folks are gay because they were abused and it's pretty obvious he was abused. And he believes those men should get married and raise children because that's the highest calling.

I'm not usually a "homophobic means closeted homosexual" but I'm of the firm belief that Card is so far in the closet he's finding Christmas presents.

[–] andros_rex@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago

He also wrote Wyrm (teenage girl is biologically destined to be impregnated by worm monster, that’s literally what the entire book is about) and Harts Hope (our hero has to rape a teenage princess in front of her entire kingdom for reasons, this turns her evil and she becomes the main antagonist.)

Card’s fucked up a lot more than “closet gay.”

[–] billwashere@lemmy.world 23 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I act on all the homosexual urges I have. They just happen to be zero. If you have homosexual urges it’s likely because you’re gay. I’m not really sure why this concept is so hard especially for the ultra religious….

[–] Schmoo@slrpnk.net 9 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Or they're bi. I grew up ultra religious and the choice explanation made more sense to me because I had both homo and hetero urges, and I assumed it was the same for everyone (I thought of people who claimed otherwise as self-righteous). In my mind at the time homosexual urges were just part of people's sinful nature they had to overcome. The whole thing only seems so incoherent from an outside perspective, which I was fortunately able to arrive at after experiencing the world more.

[–] billwashere@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago

Yeah I bet that was confusing. Being brought up that homosexuality was a choice and you had feelings for both would have been difficult at best, especially before you had a chance to really see how it all worked.

[–] CileTheSane@lemmy.ca 8 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Something like this is what encouraged my wife's conservative grandmother to reconsider her thoughts on the topic. She heard about a gay teen who committed suicide and asked "if it was a choice, why wouldn't they just choose not to be gay instead of killing themselves?"

[–] Dasus@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

"if it was a choice, why wouldn't they just choose not to be gay instead of killing themselves?"

Props to gramma. A lot of conservative people honestly just would dismiss it with the backwards logic; "so stupid of them to kill themselves when they could've just chosen not to be gay".

I'm unsure whether they actually believe it themselves, though.

[–] mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.com 38 points 3 days ago (3 children)

No this is literally it though. They think being gay is a choice because they’re repressed, and constantly feel tempted. They assume everyone feels that, and only gay people give in.

[–] QueenHawlSera@sh.itjust.works 15 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

This. When I was a kid, I thought every man in the world had this envy of womanhood and that was the reason women were oversexualized in media, because men wished they looked like that.

That it was just quietly accepted.

Heck in Who Framed Roger Rabbit I thought the line "You don't know how hard it is being a man, looking at a woman, looking the way you do." Was a direct reference to the natural Venus Envy of the male gender.

Nope just my trans ass misinterpreting an erection joke because its the 90s and families and media both aren't allowed to talk about gender with any nuance yet.

The various "Girl Power! Women can do anything!" Tropes were also something young me misinterpreted as "Venus Envy" being the natural state of society. Like women knew they were "superior" and were flaunting it to be mean.

Sexism against women? Young me doesn't know what that is or why fighting it is important. Believed in sexism against men though.. I was so dumb and confused.

[–] TexasDrunk@lemmy.world 13 points 3 days ago

Oh, I'm well aware. Not once have I ever been tempted to tickle a pickle that wasn't my own. I've never struggled with homosexual thoughts. If I had I can almost promise I'd be face down in a whole pile of dicks right now.

I was quoting, as accurately as I could, a dipshit I know. I haven't seen him since high school, right after I left the church, but this always stuck with me. I knew that pastor as well. That guy talked all the time about how Satan was going to make everyone gay and how he was tempted so he understood what the youth was going through. I remember being 14 and wondering when I'd get secret gay thoughts because of this dude. Apparently I was so steeped in sin that Satan didn't feel the need to make me want to gobble cocks as well.

It's a damn shame because I think I would have made an excellent gay guy.

[–] nickiwest@lemmy.world 11 points 3 days ago

I have said for a long time that the number of bisexual people must be huge. All of these right-wingers seem to be equally attracted to men and women, so they're obviously bi and choosing to ignore part of their own sexuality.

[–] TheRealKuni@lemmy.world 4 points 2 days ago

As I said to my parents when they said something similar:

Not everyone is a 0 or 6 on the Kinsey scale. Plenty of people have some amount of choice. But not everyone is a 3, either. Most people have a preference. And some people are a 0 or 6. Just because one person with “gay temptations” successfully lived as a heterosexual doesn’t mean everyone can. The world is more complicated than that.

[–] dingus@lemmy.world 37 points 3 days ago

Here's the thing, whether or not it's a "lifestyle" shouldn't even enter into the equation. Healthcare workers are supposed to treat everyone the same, regardless of what the patient has done or how they live. If you can't deal with that, don't go into healthcare.

[–] MotoAsh@lemmy.world 9 points 3 days ago

Well, it's a bit of both. The ostracized nature of 'different' people has spawned several sub-cultures that most 'different' people fall in to to some degree or another.

Not that anything is wrong with either being different or living differently. Hegemonic monocultures are so... fucking... BORING.

[–] frezik@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 3 days ago

I've even seen it flipped around by the people who invented the term in the first place. "They call it a lifestyle, but that's a euphemism for gross behavior". Well, not those exact words. "Euphemism" has too many syllables for their education level.

[–] Hellsfire29@lemmy.world -3 points 3 days ago (2 children)
[–] M137@lemmy.world 3 points 3 days ago

Very much not true for all. Some realise things over time, but most were born like they are. Some also do choose things, but it's a very small percentage and that in no way makes it any less important to accept and support.

[–] ballgoat@lemmy.zip 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

They gradually do not choose to be themselves? I don’t understand.

[–] Hellsfire29@lemmy.world 1 points 3 days ago

M137 understood what I meant.

I believe that people are born with the same primitive instincts as everyone else, (survive and reproduce) but they gradually begin to develop their own feelings and sense of being. Some natural, some by trauma, etc, overcoming the expectations of your parents being the biggest hurdle.

I'm just simply saying that people aren't born knowing they're a part of that community until they've come to a realization or a spark.

Just my opinion. Just how I observed a family member and his experiences. Sadly, no one accepted him and he's gone now. But I read his journals about how he felt, came to being, etc afterwards. Just wanted to understand.